


I. Of Dogs & Men

by swoledor_clegainz



Series: The North Remembers [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aspects of the Seven, Death of the Hound, F/M, Faith of the Seven, Gravedigger Theory, Warging, aged up AU, book and show canon mix, the ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) storm cometh, the pack survives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-03-27 12:35:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13880979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swoledor_clegainz/pseuds/swoledor_clegainz
Summary: In the higher hills, they came upon a tiny isolated village surrounded by grey-green sentinels and tall blue soldier pines, and Clegane decided to risk going in. “We need food,” he said, “and a roof over our heads. They’re not like to know what happened at the Twins, and with any luck they won’t know me.”The villagers were building a wooden palisade around their homes, and when they saw the breadth of the Hound’s shoulders they offered them food and shelter and even coin for work. “If there’s wine as well, I’ll do it,” he growled at them. In the end, he settled for ale, and drank himself to sleep each night.She was no one. Not Arya, not Weasel, not Nan nor Arry nor Squab, not even Lumpyhead. She was only some girl who ran with a dog by day, and dreamed of wolves by night.





	1. Arya I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Please, let him be soft.  
>  I know you made him with gunmetal bones and wolf’s teeth.  
>  I know you made him to be a warrior, a soldier, a hero.  
>  But even gunmetal can warp and even wolf’s teeth can dull  
>  and I do not want to see him break  
>  the way old and worn and overused things do.  
>  I do not want to see him go up in flames the way all heroes end up martyrs.  
>  I know that you will tell me that the world needs him.  
>  The world needs his heart, and his faith, and his courage  
>  and his strength,  
>  and his bones and his teeth and his blood and his voice and his–  
>  The world needs anything he will give them.  
>  Damn the world, and damn you too.  
>  You have already made so many heroes,  
>  and you can make another again.  
>  You can have your pick of heroes.  
>  So please, I beg you–he is all that I have.  
>  You have so many heroes  
>  and the world has many more.  
>  Let him be soft, and let him be mine.”

 Birds burst suddenly from the trees and branches overhead, squawking angrily as she raced by, taking quickly to the sky. She could hear the wind sighing through the leaves like a solemn song, and the sun hung low over the pines, large and red and warm. Below her the trees and hills went on and on, stretching as far as she could see or smell, and all the world was at once green and hers. She stopped at the crest, looking out over her domain. 

Blood. Hunger. It was deep inside her, sharp as a blade. A hunger she could feel. Food, prey – a bounding red hart or a great shaggy elk, too proud to run from her. She needed to kill as she needed the air to breathe, needed to fill her empty belly with fresh meat and blood. The cloying, sickening crunch of bones. The scent of fear and the tearing of flesh. For a wolf, there were no gods; only pride, and prey. The pack, and the game.

Far below her, at the base of the hill, shadows moved fleetingly through the trees. A great pack of wolves, with her at the head. _Queen._ She was bigger than any of them. She was proud. She was strong, and fierce, and swift as the river that ran. _Queen of the green, queen of the Whispering Wood._ She could outrun horses and outfight shadowcats, and men trembled before her. Her brothers and sisters were always with her, scores of them, howling and snapping at her heels. The woods belonged to her pack, and her pack alone. The grassy slopes, the golden oaks, the soldier pines, the rushing creeks and glimmering blue lakes. It was the kingdom of wolves, and the wolves kept it.

In her youth, she had ran an older wood with a smaller pack. They were like her; big, and strong, and unyielding. Her litter.

There were once five of them. Now there were three. Three, and the white without a voice. She could sense them at her back as if they were with her now, yet with every passing day they grew more and more distant. The proud golden prince with three glowing eyes who now walked the old lands with his boy. The silent white ranger, death in the darkness. The angry black brother with the howls full of fear and rage, whose eyes burned green. And the warrior queen, who watched her pup from a distance.

The others were only shades, dead and gone. The grey shadow who ran as fast as the wind. And her sweet sister, who’d gone to rest in the stone halls of men. The wolf queen could feel them. She was of the north, and the north remembered.

The wind shifted suddenly. _Fear. And deer._ The she-wolf ran.

Close on the scent, she was silent as shadow, her paws fleeting upon the rustling leaves. She encircled her prey, long fangs bared and primed for the kill. The hart grazed upon a thatch of grass that clawed its way above the undergrowth, unaware of the specter that haunted its every step. Her belly lay close to the ground, her hackles bristling in anticipation, ready to spring.

A _crack_ sounded through the woods, breaking the spell and startling both predator and prey. Within seconds her dinner had bounded away, disappearing into the green. Nettled, the she-wolf raised her nose to the wind; _manflesh._ Lifting her head, she let loose a long, low howl. Her brothers and sisters nearby stopped, sniffing the air, ears pricked in attention.

They would follow wherever she went.

She came quickly upon the dale where the scent led her, her tail swishing and paws sunk deep into a patch of amber grass as she stood upon the edge of the wood; watching, waiting, her golden eyes seeming to glow in the shade of the trees. The menfolk sat in a circle around the fire, eating their meat and drinking their strange water. She was close enough to hear their hearts beat, close enough to see that their fur gleamed crimson and gold.

 _Lions prowling._ The man-sound came to her ears from nowhere and everywhere. She knew at once what it meant, and slunk once more into the shadows.

Lions paid no mind to wolves anymore, nor the colors of their coats. Yet their long metal claws still stung, and their fangs sunk deep. She had long since learned to keep her distance. _In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws. And mine are long and sharp, my lord, just as long and sharp as yours._ So she watched, and waited, as her hunger only grew. She would need to strike fast and true, despite her numbers. The menfolk were at rest and unsuspecting of the shadows that stalked them, gathering ominously in the shade of the undergrowth with eyes glowing yellow and green in the last light of the day.

Game had been scarce since the lions crossed the Great River, and it had been long since they feasted. Some of her little brothers and sisters were frightened of menfolk, even dead ones, but she was not. Meat was meat, prey was prey, and only the strongest survived.

 _Blood,_ something inside her whispered. _Meat. Blood. Kill._ Her brothers and sisters longed for it too, she could feel it. They hungered just as much as she, and as they awaited her bidding they grew restless, shifting quietly in the gloom. Their cautions were slowly and surely being overridden by the nagging pang of hunger, the pressure of instinct. _Blood._ They seemed to whisper. _Kill._

And in an instant she was bounding in a deadly blur of white and grey. She could smell the stench of fear from steed and man alike – one of the horses reared and trumpeted in terror, and the lions shouted in mantalk, scrambling to take their long, silvery claws in hand. But the other wolves came from the darkness and silenced them before they could act, leaping from all sides, snapping at the legs of the horse and tearing their throats as they fell to the earth. _Hunger._ The she-wolf leapt upon the closest man; euphoria rose within her as her teeth sank through leather and wool and soft flesh. She gave a savage jerk with her head, and the red ran as freely as his screams.

_Hunger._

Arya inhaled sharply.

For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. There was only glaring sunlight and the taste of blood, fading fast. Then at once the road before her appeared again, and her palfrey beneath her, plodding steadily on. Looking down at her hand, she shook her head as if to clear it. Slowly, the world came back to her, blooming into existence.

 _I’ve been dozing again. And no wonder._ They had been riding for days, keeping clear of a band of deserters they’d encountered whilst trying to find work in Fairmarket. They hadn’t so much as slept nor eaten since, and it was beginning to take its toll on her. The wolf dreams usually came at night, but they had become more and more frequent as of late, taking hold of her even as she slumped in the saddle. Arya reveled in those dreams; she was truly _free._ There was always prey to chase, always food to eat. Her stomach rumbled pitifully. _I was so close._

The night past they had found shelter from the rain beneath the scorched, overgrown shell of a sept in the remains of what was once the village of Garth’s Well. It was an old town, hidden amongst the ancient trees and forgotten by most of the outside world. The natural spring that gave the village its name was choked with corpses, so that it ran as red as summer wine. The war had found them all the same, and now nothing lived but the feral dogs that slunk away into the shadows at the sound of their approach. Only shards remained of the once-proud windows of stained glass, and looters had relieved the seven statues of any ornamentation and left them laying sad and broken upon the barren stone floor. No part of her grandfather’s lands had been left untouched by the malignance of war. With every scorched village they passed, her heart grew more heavy. That night, she had dreamt of killing lions.

The game trail they now followed through the wood was sheltered by the willows and sentinels, winding ever on, twisting and turning over the grass and dipping down into the rushing creeks swollen with the autumn rain that ran like fingers from the base of the mighty Trident. The wood was large, though not nearly as large as the wolfswood of her homeland; they had been traveling it for two days now, and the trees were only just beginning to thin as they approached the edge. The nights were alive with the howling of wolves, but otherwise they saw no sign of people. The Hound had thought to lose the outlaws in the deep thickets of the Whispering Wood, leading them through in a winding semi-circle and masking their tracks as they went. Where they were heading, exactly, was not clear. But it was always forward, and they never lingered for long. So it had been for four long years. 

The Brute himself was farther ahead, riding easily atop the big, black warhorse he called Stranger. The horse and his master were more alike than not; tall, strong, and broad, with shaggy dark hair that fell in waves. His tattered, mismatched armor was in dire need of polishing – a mix of scavenged leather from dead wolves and lions alike, the soot-colored pauldrons, fine riding boots, and a hooded cloak of olive green.

In the years of traveling alongside the old dog, she had gradually become accustomed to his brooding company. They worked quickly and silently, as a well-oiled machine. Where he pushed she pulled, and where he walked she followed. They did not thrive, exactly, but they _survived._ A wolf needed a pack, and the dog was all that she had.

As she watched, he reigned up, and held a hand behind him to signal. She urged Craven on to join him, digging in her heels.

“What is it?” she asked, trotting up beside him. He was staring ahead, grinding his jaw.

Arya followed his gaze from where they stood in the shade of the trees, upon the edge of a large clearing. The road continued on into the open, into a trampled field where a small settlement had once been. It looked to be the site of a small skirmish – _or a slaughter, more like_ , she thought. It was half a ruin, with the blackened thatch-roof buildings either burned or plundered, still smoking from a recent blaze. In the distance loomed a great wooden palisade, built up onto the hill with logs as thick around as two men or more.

They dismounted, climbing carefully down the hill to crouch in the brush for a better vantage point.

“Dead,” the Hound muttered plainly. “Raiders, by the look of it. Might be mountain folk. Might be Lions. Definitely one _mad_ fucker, that’s for certain.”

In the great songs of battle that were sung in every inn and tavern from The North to Dorne, they never once mentioned the _smell._ Even from the cautious distance they kept, it was overwhelming; fear, and blood, and shit. More than twenty lay dead or dying, mangled by blade and spear alike, and arrows sprouted from the ground like weeds. A large wheeled wagon was at the center of the chaos, overturned, its contents strewn here and there in the blood-stained grass. It was close to the towered gate of the palisade, as if they were making for its refuge when they were attacked.

“There,” Arya whispered, pointing. “By the well. Do you see?”

“Aye,” he said. “I see.”

“Mummers?”

“Lions.”

A scream echoed through the eerie silence. There was a crowd of men in polished crimson and gold plate and various states of undress, gathered around a young woman with long auburn hair– no, _a girl,_ Arya realized. Her hand tightened around Needle’s hilt. From where they crouched she could hear her pleading.

“We should help.”

 “Eight of the fuckers,” the Hound muttered. “Eight more than I can handle on an hour’s sleep.”

“They’ll kill her.”

“Aye, and they’ll kill _us._ ”

“We can’t just leave her.”

“What have I told you about being kind?” he growled, standing. “We’re leaving. We’ll follow the trail south, away from this mess.”

Arya didn’t move. Another scream cut through the silence, and as she watched one of the men grasped the girl’s hair and drew a knife across her throat. She fell to the earth, small and limp, as his companions burst into laughter.

“Come,” said the Hound.

But she was already standing, her feet moving of their own accord. She drew Needle with the sound of metal on leather.

“ _Girl!_ ” he hissed. “ _Get back here –_ ”

They didn’t notice her until it was too late; just as she came upon them, the one nearest to her turned. She thrust her sword clean into his neck, and for an almost comical moment he was frozen mid-laugh, shock quickly turning his grin to horror. She withdrew with a flourish, and he fell to the ground, choking upon his life’s blood.

The others were thunderstruck, but soon recovered. They quickly drew their weapons, and with a yell one of them raised his sword in an arc to strike her. With an ethereal clash he was met by the flat of the Hound’s blade, and a swift, brutal backhand that snapped his neck instantly. They made quick work of the rest, who backed away when they saw the breadth of the Hound’s shoulders – as most sane men did when confronted with a seven foot monster swinging a greatsword. They could not withstand him, and he cut them down as easily as he did anything.

Catching their breath, they sheathed their bloodstained weapons. The Hound spat and kicked one of the soldiers in the head, and Arya knelt beside the girl with the auburn hair, regarding her. She was a pretty thing, with alabaster skin and green eyes. Only a child, as she herself had once been, head full of songs and hope and wonder. War had come for her, and there was no place for pretty birds amongst the quarrels of lions and wolves.

Gently, she thumbed her eyes closed, and stood.

“Where there’s a palisade,” the Hound remarked, his chest rising and falling. “There’s a village. Since we’re already arse deep thanks to you, we should see what there is to find and restock on supplies.” His eyes fell upon the overturned wagon, and the chests and furs that surrounded it. “There seems a good place to start.”

However much it disgusted her, they were starving. Their clothes were blood-soaked and practically hanging off of them in tatters, and they could only sustain themselves so much by looting the dead men that had tried their hands at claiming the Hound’s handsome bounty. They solemnly pulled the skirts down over the girl’s bloodied thighs, and set about clearing the dead away, laying them aside in the ditch nearby.

Grunting in effort, the Hound lifted the wagon and used the leverage to push it over right side up. Standing over the dead, Arya muttered a small, clumsy prayer to the seven she knew weren’t listening while the old dog began to sift through the contents of the wagon. Soon after, she joined him.

“Clothes,” she said, rifling through a pile of fabric. “For women, girls, men…this was a merchant train.” She yanked out a large, roughspun tunic. “This one might be large enough to fit you, actually.”

He looked over from the steel he was examining, and grabbed the tunic, holding it up. “Aye, this’ll do nicely.”

He unfastened his cloak and the straps around his shoulders, shrugging off the rest of his armor and leathers and tossing it to the back of the cart. Peeling off his sweat-stained, blood-soaked shirt, he threw it unceremoniously to the ground, and immediately pulled the new one over his head. It hung loosely about him, obviously made to measure for a man more rotund than he – but it served its purpose nicely.

The wagon had yielded fifteen silver stags, clothes, furs, a longbow and a castle-forged shortsword. There was no food as they’d hoped, but it was a fine haul nonetheless. Arya sat atop their treasure trove with kerchief and whetstone in hand, tending to Needle. She did so after every battle, just as her brother had once bid her. _This is no toy,_ he had said. She smiled at the memory, which now seemed so long ago and so very, very far away. _Stick ‘em with the pointy end._  

The Hound folded his thick arms and squinted the sky, which had darkened considerably, threatening to break open. Above them came the unmistakable rumble of thunder.

“Storm’s coming,” he rasped. “We’ll be needing shelter.”

His eyes fell once more to the looming palisade, and he pointed towards it. “That’s no blaze. That’s a chimney. Might be there’s still smallfolk there, and an inn besides.”

Arya stood, using the wagon’s height for a vantage point. Sure enough, there was a steady plume of smoke rising above it, too concentrated to come from an uncontrolled source. Where there was a chimney, there were people. And where there were people, there was food, and wine, and perhaps a feather bed.

Suddenly, they heard the tell-tale _cricking_ of a bowstring.

They both looked up, hands leaping instinctually to their weapons. There, high above them upon the battlements of the palisade, stood a green boy in tattered peasant’s dressings and ill-fitting leather.

“That’s far enough,” The arrow he had nocked and aimed squarely at their heads trembled as dangerously as his voice. “Lion, Wolf, or Fish?”

The Hound ground his jaw, his hand tightening around the hilt of his dirk. “Drop that arrow before you do something we’ll both regret, lad.”

The boy drew the bowstring to his chin, his nostrils flaring. “ _Lion. Wolf. Or Fish?”_

The Hound looked at her, and she at him.

“Dogs.”

### ⥈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is not only a sort of mix of book canon and show canon, but is also part of an aged-up AU, in which Arya is older to begin with and she and the Hound stay together longer. In the current timeline, she is nineteen, and he is book age, about twenty-nine. 
> 
> Also as a note: this work is indeed the artist formerly known as Learn & Anticipate. Please forgive the rebooting, the author is a perfectionist. This time it's here to stay, and will be updated bi-weekly.


	2. Hound I

The boy was green, alright. As green as grass. Younger than the wolf bitch had been when he took her from those bloody woods, and not like to know how to handle the bow he had nocked and aimed straight at their heads.  _Archers. I fucking hate archers._ He had always preferred close combat, ever since he was a pup in the training yard; he liked to get right down to it with the other sod, sword to sword in the mud and the blood. None of that nancy bow business, when you didn't even have to get a good look at the fucker you were killing. To fight was to respect, a mutual exchange of strength, and there was no respect in shooting a man down from fifty yards without even seeing his face. Arrows were for hunting, and nothing more. That wasn't to say he didn't feel like a stag in crosshairs, standing there idly at the foot of the great palisade. 

"Lion, Wolf, or Fish?" 

The boy's weapon was as old and worn as the tattered, hand-me-down leathers he wore - yet they served better than the peasant's tunic the wolf girl had found for him in the wagon, he noted in irritation. His hand tightened instinctually over the hilt of his dirk, silently gauging the distance for a well-aimed throw. _The boy's too far up._ _Fat lot of good that'll do me now._ He cursed himself inwardly; it had been moons since he'd gone without his armor. A minute of respite and he was caught with his proverbial trousers down. He ground his jaw, and squinted up at the battlements. 

"Drop that arrow before you do something we'll  _both_ regret, lad." 

The boy drew the bowstring closer to his chin, his nostrils flaring. " _Lion, Wolf, or Fish?"_

There was a certain finality to his voice, one that the Hound, if only to uphold his infamous reputation, would have challenged any other time; but this was unlike any situation he had found himself in for a very long while. It was not so often that he wound up with the short end of the stick in a stand off.  _There's no cutting my way out of this one._ At this height, with the boy aiming down at them, it was as if they were fish in a barrel. The only other option, then, was to measure his answer carefully. 

Lannister, Stark, or Tully? Amongst the common folk of the Riverlands, any of the three noble names could spell either of two fates: instant death, or gracious hospitality. Unfortunately, there was never an in-between. There was no telling whose soldiers raped whose wife or burned whose farmhouse, or whose vanguard charged over whose child. War did not discriminate between innocent and guilty, good and bad, young and old. It ravaged all in its path, seven gods or no seven gods. The only way to survive was to fight. That was the way it had always been. 

It wasn't a risk he was keen to take, but it seemed the choice was out of his hands. The girl met his eyes, wide and grey, and he knew at once that she was equally unsure of how to proceed. They were, both of them, fallen from grace. By all rights he should have been standing guard outside Joff's chamber while he tortured some ill-fated strumpet from Flea Bottom, with shined boots and polished armor and a belly full of chicken and wine, blissfully unaffected; and the girl, a true born lady of one of the most noble houses of Westeros, should have been at home in her mother's arms, learning to swing that little sword of hers and having lessons with her maester instead of running about the countryside with an old, mangy dog. There were both alone in this shit world, with no family left to speak of. Each born for greatness in their own way, each fallen short. 

And now here they both were, years later and miles away, starving, with a pack of their own: skirting the ruins of empty villages, sniffing for scraps and tucking their tails at any strange sound. Funny old life. 

Lion, Wolf, or Fish? He looked up at the boy, and suddenly he knew. 

" _Dogs._ " 

A shadow of confusion passed his grubby face, his grip on the arrow faltering. "Don't know nothing 'bout no Dogs." 

Thunder rumbled ominously above. “We’re no raiders. We only seek shelter from the storm.”

The boy stared down at him from the tower, hard and contemplating. After what seemed like an eternity, he lowered his arrow, his eyes never moving. “Open the gate!”

It rumbled to life with a great clamor, allowing them passage. They piled their belongings onto the Craven’s back, tying his lead to Stranger and riding double.

The village of Sanctuary was built upon the banks of an offshoot from the Trident. The wooden palisade was as tall as the soldier pines it was made of, and it encircled the entirety of the town, stopping at the shore and offering what protection it could. It was an old settlement, he knew - he had once passed through it in his youth, in service of the Lannister vanguard. It had been larger and more populated at the time, bustling with life and trade, if the blackened ruins outside the gate were any indication. The palisade seemed to be quite a recent addition; but the old stone buildings, with their thatched roofs and cobbled paths, had endured through winters and springs and summers, weathered and overgrown with creeping vines that reached like fingers towards the dreary sky. Willows and berry bushes had long since taken root here, offering shade along the winding dirt roads that led towards the center of town.

The stone sept that gave the village its name stood cracked and crumbling in the center of town, a shell of its former glory - and the once-crowded docks were damn near deserted, save a single rotting barge and a few measly fishing skiffs. Heaping piles of freshly caught trout sat near the edge, while exhausted silver-haired bargemen sorted through them diligently.

As they passed beneath the towered gatehouse, the villagers stared warily back at them with hollow, sunken eyes - like some unsettling welcome party. The Hound furrowed his brow under their gaze. _You’d find more cheer in a graveyard._ The girl, sitting before him on the saddle, seemed to share his sentiments. She looked around in unease, clutching her little rapier with knuckles white with apprehension. Village children stared open-mouthed after them, clinging to their mothers’ skirts and darting across the streets before the little retinue, scurrying in and out of the crowd. There were no men to speak of; only women, elders, green boys, and babes. In a sheltered settlement they would not often see outsiders. He supposed they were a sort of novelty, really; the seven foot bear and the little maiden fair. There wasn’t much excitement in a place like this.

The garrison - _could it even be called that?_ \- met them at the gate. The ill-fitting leather they had donned hung off them pitifully, practically drowning them. The weapons they clutched in their dirty hands were no true weapons at all, but made of things one would find on a farm: an axe, a harrow, a flail, a rake. Even a hay fork. Their eyes were wide and frightened, and there wasn’t a single hair upon their trembling chins.

One of them stepped forward, speaking from beneath a dented half-helm. “This way, Ser. To the lodge.” Dismounting and helping the girl from the saddle, he followed. As per usual, he dwarfed all who stood near him - they stared up at him, trembling: the leather-bound sword at his hip, the dagger at the small of his back.

Had he ever truly been a _boy,_ as these were? Or had be been born with the gravel in his gut and the fire in his eyes, a sword in his hand and a shield in the other? They looked to be only babes, playing knight-and-horse in their father’s armor. He supposed that was the truth of war: making ghosts of men, and soldiers of boys.

A withered elder stepped from behind the garrison, dressed in the roughspun cloak of a septon. His whiskered face was drawn and gaunt, but the emerald eyes that peered back at them through a frame of thinning white hair were kind. The seven-pointed star of the seven gleamed silver upon his chest, the only concession to ornament.

“Welcome, travelers,” his voice was high and thin, as unsteady as the rest of him. He raised a shaking, liver-spotted hand and swept it towards the wooden lodge behind him. “Please, come. Sit, and warm yourselves by the fire.”

 

⤝ ⤞

Inside the lodge was warm, and built upwards in a dome, offering ample shelter from the steadily falling rain. Wooden tables were arranged in a large semi-circle. There was a pot of stew on the open fire, and after more than a week on nothing but wild onions and berries it smelled like the seven heavens themselves. They sat across from the old man, who poured generous helpings of the meal into bowls and made to set it before them. The Hound snatched the bowl and immediately began to eat, positively ravenous, with no care or regard for the rather unearthly sounds he was making. 

The girl slapped his arm none too lightly, and he turned a withering glare to her, spooning more into his mouth noisily. She returned the look in equal fervor, inclining her head towards the elder and raising a brow. Following her gaze, he nodded stiffly, one little jerk. Slurping more of the stew, he swallowed, belched, and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve.

“We are in your debt, septon.” 

The old man smiled. “Of course. We are grateful for your assistance in dealing with the raiders. It was the least we could do, considering.” 

He glanced up from his bowl, speaking with a full mouth. “Don’t mention it.”

There was silence for a time, save for the crackling of the fire and the scraping of bowls as they ate. The elder stroked his salt-and-pepper beard thoughtfully, regarding them with interest.

“I watched you both from the towers as you worked. I admire your prowess with a blade, Ser.”

“Not a Ser.”

The elder creased his brow. “Then may I ask who you are?”

The Hound glanced up from his meal. “You can.” His shoulders tensed; would the old fool recognize him, as so many had before? Or would the long, dark hair that hung over his face like a curtain serve to obscure his burns?

“I am a Ranger,” the Hound said at last. “From the east. I was once in the service of the vassals of House Royce, meant to send word of the war. The boy is my squire.” The wolf girl stared down at the table, avoiding his eyes. He wouldn’t have anyone know her true identity; he had enough trouble as it was without having to worry about her maidenhead. “We’ve been traveling the Riverlands for years, roaming from place to place. Finding work as we go.”

“Then of course you understand my caution, living on the road as you do.” The elder folded his knobby, weathered hands. “In the old days, when guest rights were still sacred, we welcomed outsiders with open arms. But nowadays, we find our hospitality slowly waning, replaced by suspicion. Too many times have we been attacked, even by those we once considered allies.” He let out a wheezing, raspy cough, and was silent for a time. “I must admit my intentions in inviting you both inside were not entirely without pretense. The truth is, we could use someone of your…talents.”

“Talents?” the Hound swallowed and glanced at the girl beside him, who stared down at her own bowl, pushing the contents around absentmindedly. “And what talents might those be?”

The elder looked wary as he stared into the fire, like butter spread over too much bread. “We have walls, Ranger, but too few men hold them.”

“Men?” he chuckled, dropping his bowl to the table with a clatter. “Boys, more like.”

“I fear that is true. Only boys, too young for the horror that war brings. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to set them to the task.”

“You have a rat problem.” said the Hound, crossing his arms and scratching at his overgrown whiskers.

“Rats, Lions, Wolves. All are one in the same in the eyes of a sheep.”

“So you could use a decent sword or two. A shepherd to guard the flock.”

“Aye,” the elder nodded. “But I confess we’ve little to no copper to pay you, Ranger. We’ve given all to the Lightning Lord.” 

“‘The Lightning Lord’?” The Hound scoffed. “Don’t tell me those two gobshites have been sniffing around here as well. Did they slip you one of those nancy little notes, then? Promise to be back with payment thricefold, once they’re done waging a losing war in the name of a dead king?”

“They promised nothing but what we gave. As I say, Ranger. We’ve little copper to pay, and we’ve plenty of hungry mouths without adding two more to the mix.”

A roll of thunder shook the lodge, and the rain upon the roof overhead seemed to worsen. He looked at the wolf girl, who stared back at him. They were both starving, and in dire need of a place to rest tonight that wasn’t beneath some broken-down sept or beneath a tree. Someplace dry, and warm, where they could gather their wits and not have to worry about prowlers in the night. He had long since promised himself he would look after the girl, for some reason beyond knowing. At any rate, they wouldn’t last much longer like this - roaming the countryside aimlessly. Sooner or later their luck would run out.

He looked at the old septon, creasing his brow. “We’ll do it for shelter.”

“We have no beds here, I’m afraid.” The Elder paused, steepling his fingers. Then, he sighed. “But…there is a deserted farmstead just outside our borders, sheltered by the grove but on the road nonetheless. The owners were killed this last moon, and no one has ventured out to reclaim it since - but I’m sure after your help today, no one would object if you claimed it. Take it as payment, Ranger…and our hospitality is yours, in exchange for your protection.”

“Fair pay, for fair work.”

“Aye. Fair pay for fair work.”

⤝ ⤞

They raised their hoods against the steadily falling rain, their boots squelching in the mud. The girl readied the horses while he strapped their newfound belongings down tight, covering them from the downpour with a spare cloak. 

“Ranger,” the elder called out from behind them, taking shelter beneath the overhang of the roof.

 _Ah, there it is._ The look he was so accustomed to, the look that spoke a hundred words. Distrust, apprehension. He had seen it a thousand different times on a thousand different faces. Some were frightened of him, some pitied him. He hated that the most.

“Perhaps…” the elder continued, folding his hands once more. “…it would be best for you to keep to the shadows. My people hold no love for the boy-king…it would not be well for them to know Joffrey’s dog walks among them, unchained.”

 _Seven bloody buggering hells._ His hand closed instinctually around the hilt of his blade. Beside him, the girl tensed. Perhaps the old fool was not so much a fool after all. 

“My own dog, now.”

“But a dog, all the same.”

The rain made his hair stick to his face in spidery tendrils. “Might be you’ll be glad to have a dog, when the raiders come calling again.”

The old man smiled, inclining his head. “Seven blessings to you both.”

⤝ ⤞

The road that led to the farmstead was easy enough, albeit long and winding. The house itself was made of stone, with a lean-to built upon the side and a thatched wooden roof. The stable was a good size as well, with four stalls, a floor, and a door to boot. They put away the horses, and he shouldered their belongings with a grunt. 

Inside, they found a surprisingly cozy home. It seemed almost untouched. The entire place was centered on a square, with a large hearth on a stone dais that dominated the wall across from the door. The high ceiling was ringed by a loft where one could look down at the space below, accessed by a ladder in the corner. Beside the hearth was an oak table with chairs crowded around, and near that a stone stove over two heaping piles of coals, built in an arch. Pots and pans hung inside the stove, and a great cauldron rested atop the bars above the coals, a place to cook. An open lean-to with a slanted roof created a nook, where a large wooden wash tub sat, with cupboards on either side of it and a sheet of polished mirrored metal hung.Catty-corner to the door was a square room with a single window, where a large feather bed dominated. There were chairs as well, and rickety-looking nightstands where they might put their belongings. He piled their new furs onto the bed, and the girl looked around, taking it all in. This would do nicely. More than nicely, in fact.

“Why do you let them call you that?”

“Call me what, wolf girl?” They sat upon the stone floor near the fire, with her kneeling before him, cross-legged and straight as an arrow.

“A dog.”

He shrugged, crossing his arms. “I like dogs plenty. Not the worst thing to be called.”

“Stop, moving, would you?” The girl bit her lip in concentration as she dragged the edge of the blade along his jaw, careful not to nick him. “It might not be the worst thing, but it’s still insulting.”

“Aye, I suppose it’s meant to be.” He lifted his chin to give her better access. Furrowing her brow, she scraped away the rest of his beard before tapping his cheek and starting on his upper lip, carving away the months of overgrown whiskers. He grunted, glaring back at her. “I can shave miself, you know. I’m not a green boy.”

“Shut up and keep still, or we’ll have an accident.” She pressed the blade to his throat to emphasize, drawing a thin bead of blood.

When she was finished with her task she sat back on her heels, admiring her handiwork. Reaching behind, she rummaged through one of the packs and produced a shard of polished metal, handing it to him. He took it and raised it to his face, inspecting the work, reaching a hand up and turning his chin from side to side. It wasn’t half bad - she’d left him beard enough without looking like some crazed mountain clansman, and what’s more, managed not to carve his face up like a nice pot roast.

She handed the dirk to him and turned, sitting crosslegged with her back to his lap. He raised a hand to her head, and began to shear it diligently away, letting the soft brown hair flow through his fingers and fall to the floor in clumps.

There seemed to be a monster in his chest, growing stronger as the girl grew older. It clawed at his insides and roared when she was near to him, making him furious and agitated and impatient all at once.

It was getting harder to hide her womanhood. He was certain it was obvious now, especially to anyone with prying eyes. The slender dip to her neck, the lithe legs and arms. The harsh planes of her face, cold and wolfish. Small hands, long and slender. Alabaster skin, and the telltale curves of her little body, soft and dangerous, so very very _dangerous_. She was no longer a girl at all, at ten and nine practically a woman grown. He did what he could to hide it; kept her hair shorn close to her head, made her bind her breasts with hempen bandages. And yet soon, it would not be enough. The monster in his chest brooded.

“Are we really staying here, Hound?” 

He was quiet. "For a time.”

She folded her hands in her lap, looking down. “What comes after, then?”

“We recover.” He found himself saying. “We’ll find a way to make silver, and cross the narrow sea to Braavos.”

“Braavos?” she sounded hopeful.

“Aye. Braavos.”

### ⥈


	3. Arya II

~arsan playlist/the north remembers~

i. ends of the earth - lord huron  
ii. cherry wine - hozier  
iii. to whom it may concern - the civil wars  
iv. april come she will - simon & garfunkel  
v. naked as we came - iron & wine  
vi. the stable song - Gregory Alan isakov  
vii. woodland - the paper kites

 

In the night, her dreams were many and vivid. There was a voice in the darkness, but it sounded far away, muffled, as if she were listening from the other side of a wall. Then the familiar sound of heavy, uneven steps upon a stable floor drew Arya from the haze, until the darkness ebbed and bloomed into color before her like a wayward drop of ink upon parchment. For a moment, she was not sure what it was she was seeing. Then at once, all was clear, and it was as if she was standing there in the flesh, watching and waiting. 

"I hear you are soon for the Green Fork," The voice was deep and gruff, yet measured. Hearing it made her feel calm, soft and reassuring upon her ears.  

The boy, however, did not answer. He was sitting in one of the empty stalls, his long dark hair hanging about his face like a ragged curtain as he hugged his knees. Blood seeped from his back, blooming across the hand-me-down tunic he wore, much too large for him and hanging from his wide shoulders like a ship's sail. 

"Sandor, my boy," Arya's heart leapt. The old man was broad and towering, with deep brown eyes framed by a mane of silver hair and a great bushy beard. He balanced upon a crutch, as one leg had long since been mauled and mangled beyond repair. "Come here, lad." 

Sandor raised a hand and clutched the railing tightly, his knuckles white as he pulled himself slowly to his feet. He was only a boy, gangly and awkward on his feet, and yet he already towered above the old man. As Arya watched he shuffled clumsily over, keeping his head hung low, so that she could not see his face. 

"Turn 'round," came the gruff voice, and Sandor obeyed. 

He clutched the rough spun tunic and lifted it so the boy's back was exposed. Across it were countless abrasions - angrily red and still weeping blood, running in lines from his shoulders to his hips. The marks of a bullwhip.

The old man's face was stoney, his jaw set dangerously. "Who did this to you?" 

Sandor swallowed, hanging his head. 

"Father." 

Gently, he lowered the tunic. "Why?" 

"I..." Sandor began. "I spoke in Lord Tywin's presence." 

" _'Speaking in Lord Tywin's presence?'_ " the old man scoffed. "Even  _speaking,_ now, is a crime against the almighty House of Lannister?" 

"No," he mumbled. "It is a crime for a dog to speak in the presence of a Lion."

The old man chuckled. "Even dogs can chase off lions, lad."

Sandor turned his head, brow stormy.

"And what's wrong with dogs, anyhow?" The old man continued, chuckling. "They're fine creat - " 

" _Because that's all_ _we are!_ " Sandor shouted suddenly, balling his fists. "We're just dogs to them! Rolling in the muck, slave to their every beck and call. We always have been, and we always will be - "

The old man's hand came hard across his face. " _Hold your tongue._ " 

Sandor's breath came heavily, his lip trembling, and a for a brief moment she could see that he truly was only a  _boy._

"Better a dog than a rat, do you hear me?" The old man hissed, leaning close to him. "A dog is loyal. A dog is just. A dog would  _die_ for the ones he loves. Where's the insult in that, boy?" 

Sandor slowly looked up at his grandfather, not able to stop the flow of tears as he whispered. "They knighted him today." 

At once, the old man's crutch fell to the floor with a clamor, and he clasped the boy to his chest, wrapping his arms tight around him. Sandor returned the embrace, shoulders shaking.

As Arya watched the scene slowly faded away, like sand in the wind. 

_Lo there, do I see my Mother._

A young man's voice seemed to echo in the darkness, soft and measured - a prayer, she knew, to the gods of old. Her father had once prayed it, when she was but a girl. Arya reached out and grasped the echo tightly, and like the rising sun was pulled forward into light. 

_Lo there, do I see my Father._

_Lo, do they call to me._

Their bodies were swaddled in yellow, their faces peaceful in death; yet she knew the painted stones laid upon their eyes could not ever begin to do justice. 

"How?" the young man's voice was quiet as he leaned heavily over the stone plinth, echoing in the simple sept as the rain fell steadily, beating quietly against the roof. A man grown, of eight and ten - tall, broad, dark, and imposing - his sword seemed to hang heavily at his side. 

_Lo, do they call to me..._

"Ser Bansor and Lady Clegane were found abed, ser." The guard answered from beneath a dented half helm, voice shaking as he looked round in unease. "Died in their sleep, it appears. Lord Clegane was fell upon this morning by a wild boar in the Westerwood." 

The young man raised a hand to his mother's cloak, pulling it gently aside. There upon her dress, quite unmistakably, was a gruesome bloom of crimson. Reverently, he covered the wound, and lowered his lips to her cheek. His grandfather was laid beside her, his weathered hands folded over the hilt of his blade. Another figure was completely shrouded, a shadow beneath the banner; his father. The body was mangled and unrecognizable, the three black dogs of their sigil chasing through a field of wheat and blood. 

"If you do not tell me the truth of it," the young man turned to glare at the guard over his shoulder, and Arya's heart leapt in her chest. This was not Sandor, it was clear. The boy from the stable was gone, replaced with a Hound. Fire burned in his wild brown eyes, fire of the same intensity that had once marked his handsome face. "There will be nothing left of you for my brother to torture." 

The guard seemed ready to faint on the spot. "S-Ser...please," 

"The truth," The Hound's voice cut across him like a blade, and as Arya watched he roughly seized the guard by the throat with one huge, gauntleted hand. " _Now._ " 

"M-mercy!" 

" _NOW._ " 

The man struggled as he was raised from the ground, prying at the fingers around his neck. "G...Gregor," he gasped, spluttering. "Gregor k-killed them...last night. He...he said he'd g-geld us if we t-told," The grip tightened. "I -  _hrrk_ \- h-had to ser, I had t-to - he's the L-Lord now,  _please_ \- "

The Hound released him, and he fell to his knees with a clatter, clutching his throat and gasping. 

The big black horse trumpeted as they crashed through the stable door into the night, and the Hound did not look back as he galloped swiftly away. 

Then the night faded, and she was no longer herself. 

The lion was quick and sure upon his golden feet, but the she-wolf knew the woods as if they were part of her very being. She snorted, exulting in the chase - so close, so very very close to her prey. The boy's prayer seemed to echo through the leaves, quiet - like a whisper. 

_Lo there, do I see my brother and my sister._

_Lo there...do I see the line of my kin back to the beginning._

_Lo, do they call to me._

The birds burst from the trees in their wake, scattering to the sanguine sky in a rush of feathers. Still the lion ran, and the she-wolf followed; over mossy rocks and streams, through clearings and the tangled roots of the ancient trees, following winding game trails and long-forgotten paths of the forest. Soon, the gloom swallowed the lion's form. 

_They bid me take my place among them in the halls of Victory,_

_Where thine enemies have been vanquished, and where the brave shall live forever._

The she-wolf stopped suddenly at the crest of the hill, nose raised in attention, looking out over the brier the lion had delved into. The tangled thorns twisted and wound in deadly throughs, tight and strangling and  _dark_ above all. They seemed to be alive: and as she watched, they took hold of him.

_Lo, do they call to me._

The lion struggled, but he was already drowning. To struggle meant only to tighten its hold, to quicken death. The thorns and the tendrils wound round his golden throat, piercing and tearing and strangling, and as the she-wolf watched he bled and thrashed and bled some more, until he was at last still. Crimson tears streamed steadily from his unseeing eyes, open wide and glistening in the twilight. 

_Nor shall we mourn, but rejoice for those that have died the glorious death._

The she-wolf raised her amber eyes to the spindly branches above, and watched as a little bird took flight. 

_Lo, do they call to me._

"Girl." 

_Lo, do they call to me..._

"Girl!" 

 Arya awakened with a start, tangled in a mess of fur and linens, shooting upright and instinctually drawing the dagger she kept beneath her tunic in one fluid motion. Sweat coated her forehead in a thin sheen, and at first she was unsure of where she was, breathing heavily. 

The Hound -  _her_ Hound, not the surly young man she had seen in her dreams - stood over the bed, a looming shadow against the hazy blue of early morning light just beginning to creep from the window panes. It could not have been past the small hours yet. He was looking at her strangely, glancing down at the dirk as if she'd gone mad. Heart pounding, she lowered the weapon and flushed red. 

"Put that bloody knife away and eat," he said plainly, straightening and crossing to the doorframe. "We've shit to do, wolf girl, and I'd rather it not take all day." 

Arya flopped backwards and flung an arm over her eyes, turning over and pulling the covers back over her head. It had been long since she'd had a featherbed, even one she'd had to share with the brute. Sleep tugged defiantly at her eyelids, calling her back to the darkness. 

"Get up, eat, and come outside when you've finished," The Hound called from the door. "Or I'll get the bucket." It slammed shut behind him with a certain finality. 

She groaned, and swung her feet over the side with effort. 

Though the white ravens had flown from the Citadel and Autumn had long since arrived upon the howling, blustery winds from the north, in the Riverlands the Summer still endured; clinging desperately to fast fading sparks of life. The birds had not yet felt the shift, nesting stubbornly in the treetops and squawking away at their morning song. The latent light of dawn made the cloudless sky the purest of blues, and in the stillness of the evergreen grove it was as if nothing existed but the little farmstead and its two mismatched tenants. 

When she at last emerged from the house an hour later, squinting in the early morning sunlight, the brute tossed her scabbard. She plucked it one-handed from the air, but only just, wobbling dangerously on sleepy legs. He sat upon the stone wall in tunic and trousers, taking a deep swig from his wineskin and scratching at his scruff. 

"Getting an early start, are we?" she drawled. 

"Can't say the same for you," he grunted. "Go on then. Time to train." He stood and crossed to the well, palming his longsword from where it leaned with a flourish. "None of that nancy dancing, girl," He growled over his shoulder, replacing it in his scabbard. "I am half hungover and not of the mood for fuckery. I'll have proper drills this morning." 

"It's not nancy," she muttered, rubbing her shoulder in agitation. 

"It's nancy if I say it's nancy. Now go on." 

"Syr-" she began.

"Aye, aye,  _aye_ ," he crowed, waving his free hand dismissively. "Syrio fucking Forel, greatest swordsman to ever die. You never do shut up about the cunt." 

"Syrio could beat you bloody with one hand tied behind his back!" 

"Aye, he could? Fucking astounding, he is." He turned, raising an eyebrow. "Was. Dead now, isn't he?" 

Arya raised her chin defiantly. "A Westerosi knight will always fall before a water dancer." 

"And what of  _four_ Westerosi knights?" He let out a barking laugh. "I'd shag the queen before I ever fell to the likes of that greasy-haired fucker." 

"You're wrong. Syrio could fight ten men with a proper sword." 

"But not one Meryn fucking Trant, apparently. Go on, girl," he looked almost bored. "Take your stance. We'll see who falls before who." 

Arya was tired - tired of his barking, tired of his insults, tired of his hooded eyes and stupid face. And yet she could not fault him, despite it all. This was how they survived. This was _them._ Blood and teeth and claws and curses. It was what she was meant for; fighting. She never felt so alive than when she was _fighting._ Glaring up at him, she grasped the hilt of her rapier with one hand. As the blade slid smoothly from the scabbard, she was already beginning to pivot, twirling the sword up and over in an arc. Steel met steel with an ethereal clang. She had not seen him draw.

“Good.” he was already moving forward in his own stance, testing her waters - driving at her swiftly, the leather-bound longsword alive in his hands. Arya twirled back, parrying, but he followed closely, pressing attack after attack. Where she pushed he pulled, meeting each strike with a lazy parry of his own. She pivoted, twirling into a stance that her master had once taught her, making to run him through the chest - but he blocked easily, casting her blade aside and thrusting his foot forward. She fell to the muddy ground, arse first.

“Sloppy,” he smirked. She glared up at him, and ignored the hand he extended. Raising her legs, she kicked, using the momentum to spring catlike to her feet.

The two swords clashed and sprung apart, clashed and sprung apart. High and low, left and right - overhand, backslash - with a clamor, sparks flew. Always attacking, moving into her and away from her, step and guard, strike and step, a slash, a block, faster and faster and faster-

Until, breathless, he froze with his sword aloft as she held her blade beneath his chin - victorious. "Need a shave, dog?" 

“Not bad,” His chest heaved, and a lopsided grin spread slowly across his face. “Not bad at all. For a squire.” His eyes roved downwards, and Arya followed his gaze. His dirk was pressed squarely against her belly, digging into her skin.

She lowered her blade, catching her breath, the euphoric rush of triumph slowly draining. 

“I yield.”

"Right." With a flourish and a flash of silver, he retracted his knife and slid it smoothly back into the sheath at the small of his back. “Lesson over.”

She glared up at him. “What lesson?”

He chuckled, smirking down at her for the second time that morning. _Bastard._  “One day you’ll understand. But not now.” 

⤝ ⤞

When she emerged once more from the house in cloak and boots, he shoved a sharpened, makeshift wooden spear in her direction. She caught it in her hands, quirking her brow. "The fuck is this for?" 

“S’spear,” he grunted, shrugging and turning away. He had left his dented, soot gray armor once more and elected for simple leathers, dressed in woolen tunic, trousers, and the olive green hooded cloak that they had found in the wagon a few days past. The small green scarf that kept the sweat off his back as knotted securely around his neck. What’s more, he wore his knife at the small of his back, concealed beneath his cloak, and a stocked quiver hung loosely at his side from his belt. As she watched he swung the longbow over his shoulder, and she thought for a moment he truly looked the part of ‘Ranger’ as the townsfolk called him.

She rolled her eyes at the back of his head and hurried to match his tall strides. “I know it’s a spear, I asked what it’s for.”

“If you’re going to live under this roof with me you’ll be damned sure to make yourself useful. And so,” When at last they had reached the edge of the wild forest, he held the bow, nocked an arrow and leaned against the tree, watching silently from behind it. “I’m going to teach you how to hunt.”

Arya stood close behind him, leaning her head and watching his movements. His head turned this way and that, and then stopped suddenly. He drew the bowstring to his chin and straightened his back, swiveling and tracking something silently with his arrowhead - and then, like a silent dream, a young stag cantered into view.The bowstring cricked as he took aim, but suddenly he grunted and let it go slack again, glancing at her in annoyance out of the corner of his eye.

“Breath quieter, will you?” he muttered.

“Sorry.”

The stag grazed peacefully at the tall grass in the clearing, unsuspecting, and with a shiver Arya was reminded of her dreams.

“I didn’t think you like shooting,” she whispered automatically, pulling herself from the reverie and remembering how relentlessly he had mocked Anguy of the Brotherhood. “I didn’t think you _could_ shoot.”

“I am a knight in everything but title and pretentious ‘vow’, girl.” He said quietly, still tracking the creature. “And every knight can swing a sword, shoulder a lance, ride a horse…”

With a quiet _twang_ and a sharp whistle, he let the arrow slip. Her eyebrows raised in surprise as the arrow met its mark, driving through flank of the stag. The poor creature stiffened, and then collapsed on its side, legs slack but still twitching. “…and shoot a bow.”

The Hound lowered the weapon and sighed, swinging it around his shoulder again.

Arya recalled watching him defeat Ser Jaime in the Semi-Finals of the Hand’s Tourney all those years ago. She had been watching from among the smallfolk, having given Fat Tom the slip. As much as it pained her to admit, she had been quietly rooting for him the entire time. She had hated him, then, but anything was better than the smirking prat that had grilled her at the crossroads. The Hound had been hit but managed to stay squarely on his saddle, and she remembered thinking him clever despite her anger towards him, learning Jaime’s patterns and movement and following with him. The dog had unseated the pompous, blonde prat from his blood bay warhorse at their second pass. He had done much the same, she surmised, with the stag. She was now not so confident that Jaquen H’Ghar would have killed him without contest, after all.

The Hound walked over to the great creature and knelt, Arya following close behind.

Its breathing came slow and labored, its bloodshot eye searching desperately.

“It’s..still alive,” she murmured, kneeling at its head.

“Aye,” he said quietly, his brow knit.

As she watched he softly laid a large hand on its neck, leaving it there in quiet reverence. It seemed to tense, and then relaxed to his touch. His eyes closed briefly, and then opened, his free hand reaching around to grasp the hilt of his knife and slide it from its hilt. Slowly, almost tenderly, he pushed it into the creature, all the way to the hilt. He watched until the stag grew limp, and then sighed deeply, reaching to remove the arrow easily and wipe it clean on his trousers. With a grunt, he stood and picked it up with two arms, swinging it over his shoulder like a sack - not unlike how he’d hauled her away from the Twins on the night of Robb and Mother’s murder. He turned towards her and began walking.

“Follow me, girl. Have that spear ready, and be quiet.”

Silent, she obeyed.

Soon they were crouching in the brush, their recent kill limp beside them. It seemed it was ages that he stared into the green, squinting, turn his head this way and that and keeping his ear to the wind. Then, he moved closer to her, leaned so that his face was beside hers, and pointed silently. She followed his large finger to a gap between two young saplings. “Ready yourself,” He said lowly. “Raise the spear, up on your shoulder.” She did so, and he adjusted her grip, grunting in something akin to approval. A large arm wound around her middle to steady her, and she gulped at the sudden burst of electricity that seemed to run up her spine, her grip faltering.

A boar, not fifteen feet away, waddled into view, snorting and pawing for truffles.

“Aye, he’s a fat one.” The Hound murmured against her ear. “We’ll eat a week off him easy.” A large hand grabbed the tip of the spear and drug it gently, following the path of the boar, always just half a click ahead. “Learn him, girl. Anticipate him.” When the boar stopped, the Hound stopped. When the boar backtracked, so did he, tracing his path with the tip of the spear. They watched the beast for five minutes at least, crouched pressed together in the bushes, and Arya’s breath seemed trapped in her throat. “Wait for it,” he said, letting go of the spear - and right on time the boar stopped. “Now chuck it.”

Arya hesitated for a click, and then pulled back her arm and threw the spear. It twisted in the air and curved, skewering the beast.

“Good girl,” he muttered, and then stood.

In an hour or so they left the wood and headed back to the farmstead with two stags, the boar, and three pheasants, which Arya tied together by the feet and slung on her back along with his bow. The Hound, amazingly, carried the two stags stacked and swung over his shoulder and the boar under his free arm. “We’ll field and salt them, and we’ll have enough food for two moons at least.”

There seemed to be a fielding table beneath the awning of the stables, where Stranger and Craven stood braying at their return. She smiled when she saw them and produced some berries she had picked on their way, holding them up to the horses.

“You spoil them,” he called to her, hanging their hunting on the hooks and throwing one stag onto the table, stabbing his knife into the heavy wood.

“And _you’re_ too hard on them.” He wasn’t, really; on more than one occasion she had caught him speaking lowly to the big black warhorse, petting him and pressing his forehead to his snout. And of course there was the time a wayward bandit had shot at them from the brush as they trotted along and grazed Stranger’s flank, drawing blood - and the Hound had wheeled around and ran him down, cutting him near in half.

She sat upon the stone wall, swinging her legs and watching as he worked.

“Father never let me watch him field,” she said, curious.

“I’m not your father, girl.” He looked over his shoulder as he rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, regarding her. “Come here, and I’ll teach you.”

Hesitantly, she dropped to the ground and moved towards him.

He picked up the knife, yanking one of the front legs up and making a swift slice across the creature’s middle. He beckoned her closer, to where she was against the table, and came behind her, placing the knife in her hand.

“See the cut I’ve made?” he said lowly.

“Yes,”

He closed his larger hand over hers, the hand holding the knife, and moved it so that she retraced the slice. “You see it? You’re going to keep working at that, there. Hack through the sinew, separate the skin and muscle - the meat. There you go. Now do it all up and down the creature.”

She used both hands now, and he guided her. She was entranced by the work, the blood seeping warm onto her hands as she sliced, pulled up, folded, sliced.

“Good,” he muttered, and his hands moved up her steadily working forearms, leaving a trail of blood. “Not too fast, now. Aye.” His hands were around her waist and she felt herself shiver at how close he was to her. “Good girl.” she continued her work, and he fell silent, watching. She felt his hands move down to her hips, and her eyes fluttered closed.

The sound of beating hooves broke the spell as quick as it had come. Her eyes flew open, and he straightened, turning his head towards the noise. He grabbed the blood-stained knife from her and sheathed it behind him.

Three men in crimson and gold armor were making their way down the dirt road, and almost passed until they saw him, reigning in their horses and stopping.

“Ho!” One of them said, trotting up. The Hound puffed out his chest, standing tall (at seven foot, it wasn’t challenging for the man) and sauntered towards them nonchalantly. A hand was behind his back, and she could see his grip on the handle of his knife. The other hand hung at his side non-threateningly. The Lannister soldier and his comrades looked down on him from their mounts, and she felt the urgent need to hide her face.

“Many blessings of the seven,” said the Hound loftily, smiling slightly, and Arya knew it was false. “How can I be of service?”

The first of the soldiers cocked his brow, regarding the Hound with masked interest. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you ‘round here before. What’s your name, peasant?”

“Bayard, milord.”

He sneered at Arya, nodding towards her. “And the girl?” Her heart dropped; some were not so easily fooled, it seemed.

The Hound glanced over his shoulder, brow creased. “My wife, Rossa.” His knuckles were white on the hilt of his knife.

“You sound western. What are you doing this far south?” Arya glanced briefly at the soldier’s comrades, both of which were eyeing her greedily. One of them, to her disgust, licked his lips when he saw her looking.

“I was wounded battling Northmen for Lord Tywin,” said the Hound, as if he had rehearsed. He pointed at his face, where the burn twisted up his forehead. “Manky eye. Flaming arrow to the face will do that to a man.”

The Lannister soldier grimaced in disgust, and his mount shifted slightly beneath him. “That’s very noble of you, but that doesn’t answer what you’re doing here.”

The Hound bit his lip, smirking up at him. “I’m living the land, milord. Hunting, farming,” he glanced back at Arya. “…laying with my wife.”

The soldier stared at him, hard. The Hound stared back, shoulders tense. Arya scarcely breathed. Then, the soldier started to laugh. His comrades joined in, but the Hound did not. The laughter faded, replaced with smirks.

“Have you any gold, farmer?”

“Why?”

“For the protection we’re allowing you.”

“Protection?”

“Yes, see, you pay me…” He looked at his bald friend, the one who had licked his lips at her. “…and Roach here doesn’t kill you and rape your pretty little wife.”

It was the Hound’s turn to chuckle, shaking his head at the ground.

“Think that’s funny, do you?” said the soldier, moving his mount closer.

“Aye, I do.” The hand that wasn’t clutching the knife now hooked on his scabbard.

“Bayard,” Arya whispered in warning, eyes wide.

The Hound looked over his shoulder at her, and then back up at the soldier. “I’m going to tell you how this is going to happen, lad.”

The soldier shifted. “Are you?”

“Aye.” He walked over to where their fresh kills were hanging and yanked down the boar and the second stag. “I’m going to give you this meat by the grace of the seven and the generous will in my heart. You’re going to take it, and you’re going to go on your way, and you’re going to leave us be.”

The man gave him a queer look, his mount pawing. Then he caught the eyes of his comrades, who both smirked. “All right then, farmer.” He said at last, crossing one hand over the other. “We’ll take your meat and go.”

As they pounded off, the Hound stood and watched stonily with his arms crossed, until they had disappeared into the woods once more. Arya came beside him, sighing. “Should’ve let me gut them,” he said gruffly, glaring down at her.

She patted his arm. “They were on horseback and we’re tired. They’re probably hungry. Maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

He made a noncommittal grunt, squinting up at the afternoon sun. “Aye, well. We’ve lost half our rations for the moon. We’d better trek to the village and see if we can scare up a meal and some silver for these pelts." 

He wore his hood low over his head as they rode into the village aboard the wagon, which had indeed become more lively and welcoming to their presence the days had gone on. It seemed the fishing was plentiful this week, and there were more smiles upon the weary, lined faces that greeted them. He ‘whoa’d’ and brought them to a clattering stop in the small market square near the docks. Old women seemed to move in huddles, their wash balanced upon their silver heads, and their were definitely more merchants than there were at their arrival, camped beneath multicolored tents rather made up to look like pavilions at a tourney. Whilst the Hound bartered with a monger over their pelts, scratching his head in irritation, Arya wandered nearby, keeping him in sight.

Soon she found herself strolling into a building with glass windows. It smelled of parchment and candle wax, and of something quite old but not entirely unpleasant - ink. She realized that it was a rather destitute bookshop, with hardly any wares besides atlases and Holy Enchiridions. It had been long since she entered a proper library or bookshop; years, in fact, the last time being in the high roads of King’s Landing. Mother had told her that little ladies didn’t need to learn read volumes, only ravens and holy texts, and that it was best left to little lords to read beyond that. Her father, however, had always spoiled her with any book that caught her fancy. Her favorites were always _Ser Gareth and the Green Knight_ , and the _Tales of Brandon._

Running her fingers along the weathered spines and breathing the familiar smell in deep, a particularly old volume caught her eye. She reached up and tipped it from its place upon the shelf, smiling at the cover sadly. As she made to put it down, the man attending the shop cleared his throat gently, begging her attention.

“An excellent read, that,” he was a Maester, his eyes ancient and white with cataracts. It was a wonder he could spy her at all, let alone read the title from where he sat at the wooden desk, quill in hand.

“Is it?” she said.

“You’re welcome to it, you know. Free of charge. As a thanks for what you and your master have done for our village.”

“Oh,” she said, blinking. “I really couldn’t, ser- ”

He shook his hand dismissively. “Please. Take it, lad. It is the least an old man can do, in the hopes that it may sow the seeds of knowledge in tomorrow’s generation.”

Arya glanced up through the window, where she could see the Hound counting silvers from a rather hefty bag. She looked back at the old maester before she left to join him, smiling graciously from the doorframe. “Thank you, ser.” 

⤝ ⤞

_Where could he have gone now?_

She searched high and low for him on the stead, but found no trace of him. Both horses were accounted for, so he couldn’t have gone far. Following the forest path they had used for hunting earlier, she thought she heard a noise in the distance. She turned her head towards it and pursued it deeper into the forest.

Following the banks of a wide, deep creek, she soon came upon a clearing with a smattering of large, smooth rocks. To her chagrin, there was a pile of clothing thrown haphazardly next to what was unmistakably his scabbard and knife, in their sheaths, his sword belt wrapped tightly around both. Leaning down and sighing, she picked up a tunic and let the soft material run smoothly through her fingers. A sudden splash startled her.

 _Oh, seven hells._ He was bathing. There. Only yards away.

Some sort of girlish curiosity slowly crept through her as the blush rose steadily to her cheeks, and against her own volition she did not look away. _Seven bloody buggering hells._

He was a large man. She had always known this, but she had never really _seen_ firsthand before. He was one of the largest men she had ever known, taller even than the Greatjon, and in the north it was said that he had giant’s blood. Seven heads and maybe a half, muscled like an aurochs, and as hairy as one to boot. His biceps bulged, and his torso and his breast seemed to be chiseled from stone. There was a thick dusting of dark hair almost everywhere there could be and especially concentrated on his chest, reaching in a long, thick line down to his navel, which disappeared - thankfully - beneath the water. As she watched, he closed his eyes and dumped a bucket over his head, pushing his long, dark hair back from his scarred face and shaking it like the wet dog he was.

His knotted muscles rippled as he scrubbed himself near raw with the soap, and she watched, entranced, as his large hands spread the suds over his body. Her hand clutched the woolen material of his tunic tighter.

“Enjoying the show?” his voice startled her - she snapped back to reality, straightening up.

He was rinsing himself, staring straight at her, and began to emerge from the water. She took a step backwards but then immediately began thanking the seven merciful gods above that he still wore his breeches. He stopped, dripping and towering above her. She gulped, her eyes level with his chiseled, hairy breast, which rose and fell as he breathed.

“That mine?” he grunted, pointing toward the tunic she had clutched tightly in her hand.

For a second she was still, and then turned her head away, glaring at nothing, and thrust it out to him. Smirking down at her, he shook it out and pulled it over his head.

She was almost sad to lose the view.

⤝ ⤞

“What are you reading?” 

“The Book of the Northmen,” she replied, slamming it shut with a frown. The leather-bound cover was fraying in places, and its yellowing pages smelled of heady incense and smoke. The smell was familiar; that of a sept. Thinking of septs only made her think of home, of Winterfell - and thinking of Winterfell only made her feel…peculiar. Lonely. Lost. Sick. There was once a heavy feeling in her chest, where once her family had lived. “It’s full of stupid stories about giants and wolves that old nan used to tell us when we were babes.”

“Stupid, are they?”

Arya rested her chin on her knees, staring out over the glade. “Stupid little stories for stupid little girls.”

“There is some grain of truth in even the strangest of tales.”

She hugged her knees tighter, sighing deeply. “Not in these.”

The sun was low over the trees, and the cool, pale autumn evening was quietly fading into the night. The river water glittered in the twilight, pink and blue and babbling over the rows of evergreens and orange. At Winterfell, she had never seen the trees turn. She had always been a summer child, born and bred, even in the North where the winter seemed to ever linger. She had never known true cold - yet always at the back of her mind, the words of her house echoed. Winter is coming.

The Hound yawned, stretching over the stoop he was perched upon and crossing his arms behind his head. “Let’s have it then.”

“What?”

“Read the bloody thing to me. To help me sleep.”

“The Hound wants me to read him a bedtime story?” she couldn’t help the smile that played upon her lips. “Should I fetch milord some ice milk as well?”

“I’m as much a lord as you are a lady. Read the fucking thing or shut up, and do it quickly.”

### ⥈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sandor: *bathing in slow motion*  
> *Let's Get It On by Marvin Gaye starts playing*


	4. Hound II

_Three moons later._

The king was dead, or so it seemed; and the small folk rejoiced. There wasn't much rejoicing on his part, however, nor the girl's, if only because the wretch's death did not come by his hand, nor  _her_ blade - nor was it quite soon enough for either of their tastes. Throughout the seven kingdoms the word spread upon dark wings, spinning a treacherous if not inconceivable tale of the Imp's traitorous plot against the boy king and little bird who had - at last - fled her cage. 

"Good on him," he had said, when the girl relayed what she'd heard in the village. "And good on her. 'Bout time she shat on their heads and buggered off." 

The girl had labored to appear indifferent as she breathlessly recounted the tale, but it was clear to him that she was eager for any news of her sister, and clung to each word no matter how small or insignificant. The girl was worried, despite what she insisted. Her mother and father are long dead, along with her brothers; it was no small wonder, truly, that she should fear for her kin. Starks being a dying breed nowadays, she was among the very last. 

At any rate, despite his firm and unwavering protests he found himself dragged by the hand to to the tavern of all places, during a night of raucous if very macabre celebration over the boy-king's demise.  _The Long-Tailed Tomcat,_ the place was called, and as he sat mourning the fact that he was being forced to be at least somewhat sociable, the drunken festivities raged on around him, pouring out into the crisp autumn night. Comings and goings were punctuated with an uproar of cheers and greetings, ale sloshed in horns and dripped carelessly to the floor as laughter filled the air, and someone somewhere was playing a fiddle to the lively tune of  _Gareth's Wake_ as boys and elders and women alike danced two by two, stumbling over their feet. 

The Hound sat in a corner, quite squarely secluded from it all, with his dark hood pulled over his head so that it obscured his face. Already half drunk, he sat hunched and nursing a pounding headache in the bottom of his own ale. He swirled the drink absentmindedly as he wiped the horn to and fro, looking like a great black raven in his decidedly gloomy corner. His eyes shone like glittering coals from beneath his hood, and as he pulled deeply from the horn his gaze never left her. _A pretty boy she makes,_ he thought, grinding his jaw with a grimace. The ale burned going down, as it always did, and the meaty fist that rested on the tabletop opened and closed, opened and closed. 

The girl was across the barroom floor amongst a flock of green boys, with a pint clutched in her hand she laughed and carried on, beaming and pink-faced with drink. The monster in his chest reared its head in irritation, grumbling. The lad who'd met them at the gate all those moons ago was beside her; Heid, he was called, and he was much too close to the wolf girl for his tastes. The hand the boy rested on her shoulders made the monster snarl, and the growing proximity as they moved closer with every jest. What's more, the sight of her tawny hair glowing in the latent lamplight made his chest tight with something else. 

Before he registered what he was doing he was standing with the screen of heavy wood on stone, and his feet were moving of their own accord as his dark cloak billowed behind. Shoving unceremoniously through the writhing, drunken crowd, he made his way quickly to her and promptly snatched her wrist, giving her a violent tug that sloshed ale over the front of her tunic. The boy creased his brow, gazing after them in concern.  _Little shit._

"Oi! What're you - !" she began, startled. 

"We're leaving," he growled lowly, brow stormy. 

"No, we're  _not!_ " she protested, but he did not let go, practically dragging her away and out the door into the crispness of the night, like a dog with a pup's scruff. The villagers, thankfully, barely spared them a wayward glance as they stalked away. By then, her face had turned a shockingly bright red with a heady mixture of anger and embarrassment. "You - absolute - ARSE!  _What -_ " she kicked and struggled against him, punctuating each word with a savage blow. "The  _fuck_ do you think you're doing?!" 

He ignored her pointedly, pulling her roughly into the stables where Stranger waited, nickering impatiently at their arrival. 

" _If you don't tell me what the fuck it is you're playing at I swear to the seven I'll - !_ " She gave an exasperated cry, and there was a glint of silver as she produced the stiletto she kept tucked into her breeches and quickly raised it, aiming to wound. 

He caught her wrist mid-swing, his hand closing tight and squeezing, making her drop the little blade - and then, in an instant, had her slammed forcefully against the splintery wall of the stable. 

" _You try that shite again and I'll ring your little neck, you hear?!_ " he growled savagely, his lips so close to hers he could smell the sweet wine upon her breath. " _Ungrateful, ugly little bitch - I should've left you in that bloody forest for some other poor sod to suffer with_." 

His words hung almost palpably in the air. 

Shame overtook him like wildfire as she glared stonily up at him, tears gleaming in her winter grey eyes and her chest rising and falling rapidly. Heart dropping, he released her and took a step back. She shoved his hand away and continued to stare defiantly up at him, nostrils flaring, and then tore her gaze from his to stalk away into the gloom. There was the sound of rustling, of metal on leather and then a heavy snort. 

"Girl," he started softly, meaning to apologize, but quickly stepped out of the way as a horse -  _his bloody horse -_ jumped the stall and came careening towards him like a bat out of the seven hells with the girl clinging low to his back, looking comically small compared to the big black vanner. She urged Stranger on with a sharp yip and disappeared into the night, her cloak billowing in her wake; but not before he glimpsed her wiping glistening tears on the inside of her tattered sleeve. He cursed the beast, who'd never taken to anyone but him before - and then cursed his gods-be-damned self as he watched her go. 

She was always 'the girl' to him, and for a moment he convinced himself that was  _all_ she was - nothing more. Immediately another voice followed, whispering seductively into his ear,  _Girls grow up into women._ And the she-wolf certainly had. His fist clenched and opened, clenched and opened as he stood watching the stable door, ashamed and irritated and angry and guilty all at buggering once.

The stormy grey eyes flashed briefly in his mind's eye, cutting like a blade; the soft, full lips that twisted into an easy smile. The locks of bark-brown hair that fell in waves and wind-blown strands that clung to her reddened face. The alabaster skin, as pale as moonlight. The cold, wolfish features that made his blood run high. He could not help but think of her lips, so close to his own. 

And yet it did not matter in the slightest. Just as little ladies were not meant for the hands of soldiers, wolves did not lay with lowly dogs. 

The monster in his chest brooded. 

⤝ ⤞

It took him an hour at least to return home, picking his way deliberately slow through the dark undergrowth, tired and properly pissed and chilled to the bone, kicking little rocks as he went. By all accounts he was reluctant to return, but it seemed the she-wolf had the courtesy to leave a candle or two in the window pane; he followed the light as one would a beacon, only a pinprick dancing merrily in the shadows between the trees. 

The door opened and closed behind him, the sudden warmth nipping pleasantly at his cheeks. Scraping his boots on the bench, he saw that she was sitting quietly at the table, seemingly very interested in the meal of bread and meat gravy that sat before her, untouched. 

"Hungry?" she said coolly, not looking up at him. 

He scratched his neck vigorously, glancing down at the floor and examining the toe of his boot.  _She's got me acting like a bloody green boy._ "Aye." 

"Sit down and I'll get you some." She stood suddenly and crossed to the counter, yanking the read knife from the block. He obeyed, feeling very small or what he was quite sure was the first time in his life. "Wine?" 

"Red." He grunted, almost reflexively. And then, like a sheepish child remembering his manners, grumbled: "Please." 

She cut two slices neatly from the loaf, piled a generous helping of deer meat onto each, and then poured two full cups of the Dornish red they'd scrounged up in the village the moon past. From the table, she seemed to feel his eyes as he watched her every move, and he could see the little lines between her brow deepening considerably.  _So she's still miffed, then._ He held his breath as she settled opposite him, only releasing it when she nudged his plate impatiently with her knife. 

"Eat." 

_Aye, she's miffed._

But she'd still made him supper.  

### ⥈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh look a drawing what the heck. huh. nifty
> 
> and oh look jealous sandy lashes out and has the communication range of a teaspoon


	5. Arya III

 Brute. The axe dug savagely into the log, splintering the wood where it fell.  _Bastard._ Another heavy  _thunk_ punctuated her thoughts, a new, spiteful curse accompanying each swing of the axe.  _Cunt._ Thunk. She glared through the window from where she stood, watching him hard at work in the yard and aggressively scrubbing the shabby, chipped plates they'd broken their fast upon that morning. The events of the night before dogged her thoughts relentlessly, and though she had labored to appear cool and calculated, rage and embarrassment still warred within her.

As she watched, he swung the axe and left it sprouting from the block, fishing in his trousers for his kerchief and wiping the sweat off of the back of his thick neck. Then, without so much as a look at the house, he gathered up his bow, slung it over his shoulder and stomped off into the woods.  _Good. I won't have to look at his gods-damned face all day._

Hours had now passed and the sun had begun to sink low and red in the sky. She expected him back with supper slung over his shoulder at any minute, and, soon enough, heard the telltale thumping of heavy boot steps upon the stable floor behind her. "Was the hunting good, then?" she called over her shoulder, continuing to brush Stranger's coat. The big horse snorted and stamped in place, seemingly uneasy. She laid a hand on his neck, calming him. 

The steps stopped only feet behind her, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing. 

"No? What a shame." 

Something hard collided with her head, making her see stars. In an instant she was knocked to the ground, breathless. Stranger stomped, braying in distress, his hooves hitting the stall door with a clamor. Groaning and confused, she made to raise her head but found it shoved the ground and herd there none to gently, a knee digging painfully into her back.

"What the fuck - ?" she kicked blindly. 

An awfully familiar, foul-breathed voice sounded in reply, uncomfortably close and hot against her ear. "Where's your big fucker of a husband now, girl? Not here to protect you?"  _Seven hells. Seven hells, seven hells - the Lions._

Arya kicked again, desperately struggling against the Lion's grip. "Geroff me, you bastard!" 

"Don't pay the price," he panted, and a shiver went down her spine. "Suffer the penalty." The soldier laughed his raspy laugh, and was joined by a few others she couldn't see. 

"Get the fuck off me!" she screamed, her heart pounding, and from somewhere she heard the unmistakable clinking of belts. The smell of alcohol permeated the air, and her heart beat wildly against her ribcage as she struggled. 

The knee pressed into her back with renewed vigor, and rough hands ripped at her breeches. She screamed again, managing to roll and kick the soldier in the face, clambering backwards on her now-bare bottom. Clutching his bleeding nose, he let loose something again to a war cry and unsheathed his knife to swipe at her, ripping across her chest painfully as blood splattered upon the wall. 

" _Hold the little bitch down!"_ The leader hissed, and his comrades moved quickly upon her, each pouncing and grabbing hold of an arm. Her screams were cut short by a brutal strike fo a pommel, and her vision became tunneled, her hearing muffled. She felt her tunic being ripped from here, heard a belt fall to the floor and despite it all screamed again and kicked wildly as the grimy hands moved upwards. "Oh yes," came a panting voice. "I like 'em a bit broken in..." 

Then, crouched before her, he choked blood. 

There was a roar, and _he_ was there, the Hound - ripping his dirk from the Lion's throat with the sickening sound of tearing flesh. Glaring, he kicked him aside without a care, away from here, and brought sword clutched in his other hand down upon the soldier holding her. Arya clambered away, clutching her ruined clothes to her chest and breathing fast and heavy. 

He fought with the strength of twenty men, it was true, a blur of blood and steel; but he was without armor, and as she watched him cut down one lion there was another creeping behind, swift lying plunging his sword into his shoulder. With a savage yell he spun around, hacking swiftly as his own blood blossomed across his chest. The sword sprouted from his shoulder like an absurd, stubborn weed, but it did not seem to faze him - fire and rage blazed in his eyes as he cut down the rest of the pack. The other soldier who had been holding her down was attempting to crawl away towards the door, sobbing and clutching the bleedings stump of his forearm to his chest, but the Hound saw and, teeth bared, grabbed his violently by the air. With a sickening punch, he snapped the soldier's neck, and he fell lifeless to the floor alongside his comrades. 

The Hound stood with his back to her, shoulders rising and falling rapidly and blood dripping steadily as a deadly hush fell. With the clamor of metal both of his weapons fell from his grip to the stable floor, and with a weary, pained grunt he raised his fingers to the hilt of the blade and slid it from his flesh. It, too, fell to the floor with a crash, stained with a shocking streak of crimson. 

He looked over his shoulder at her. There was an animalistic glint in his eyes that seemed to smolder with rage, but when he saw her there, wide-eyed and clutching her tunic to her chest, it softened into something else. Then at once his eyes slid out of focus, and as a low grunt left his lips eh fell heavily to his knees. 

" _Hound!_ " 

###  ⤝ ⤞

She shoved him down onto the footstool and forbade him from standing, bustling about the house like a proper nurse to gather a bucket of clean water as well as what soap, rags, and linen bandages they'd managed to scavenge from looting corpses and ill-begotten trades with the less than savory merchants that frequented the market of Sanctuary. 

"You're a right git, you know that?" she hissed, standing on tip toe and attempting to staunch the blood. "Taking on six at once - what the fuck were you thinking?" 

"Oh aye, a git, am I?" He grimaced as she moved to clean the wound, dabbing and blotting none to gently. "Wouldn't have had to take on six at once if you'd stayed in the bloody house like I've told you to. No, you've got to go out and get me cut and stabbed and beaten." 

"I would've stayed in the bloody house if you hadn't ran off without telling me where you were going!" 

"I would've told you where I was going if you weren't so gods-damned full of yourself to speak to me!" There was silence save the crackling of the fire, dancing merrily in the hearth as she threaded the suture. "Silly bitch," he muttered. She shrunk away, turning her head when he raised his hand to her. He retracted and lowered his head to her level, forcing her to meet his gaze. 

"You're bleeding," he said, softer, and slowly moved his hand again, to gently hold her chin. There was black and blue blooming on her face from the strikes she endured, and thin stripe of blood stained her tunic. 

"It's nothing," she insisted, raising her hand dismissively. "It's you who's hurt, besides." She turned to wring the rag over the bucket, turning the water an unpleasant shade of brown. As she worked she felt his eyes upon her, drilling, and yet he was silent as stone.

"I was thinking...I had to kill them for touching you." he grumbled quietly, and if she hadn't turned to see his lips move, she wouldn't have believed he'd said it. 

Her heart dropped a little in her chest, and a heat stirred low in her belly. She coughed, quickly snatching a clean rag from the pile and soaking it. "Take your tunic off. You've fucked up more than just your shoulder, and I...I won't have it getting infected." He looked uneasy at this command, but obliged, shrugging it up and over his head. 

###  ⤝ ⤞

"What's this one from?" she indicated a nasty scar near his hip as she been to wring out the rags, one that disappeared beneath the band of his trousers.

He twisted to look, then returned to holding the bunched cloth to his bleeding brow. “Arrow. From the Trident.”

“And this one?” A large, burnished slice down to his ribs that seemed to curve to his front, over his breast, fresh blood from his wounds seeping over it.

“A boar, when I was seventeen. Charged me out of the thicket. Didn’t kill me like it did that fat old cunt Robert.”

“And…these?” as she wiped the blood away she reached a hand out and lightly squeezed some meat of his bulky biceps and the countless winding cuts there.

“A sword, or three. Can’t remember whose. Probably Lannister bannermen. I liked to pick fights with the little whelps in my youth.”

As she stepped around to gather more dressings, her gaze moved over his broad, bare back; over long, burnished white scars that stretched from his shoulders to his hips, rippling as he moved. There were many of them, criss-crossing upwards and down.

“These aren’t from a sword,” Arya said quietly, and he huffed, looking over his shoulder.

“No, they are not.”

“They’re from a bullwhip.”

“…Aye.”

She stroked them lightly, feeling the raised, smooth skin beneath her fingertips. His back tensed at the contact. “What happened?”

He sniffed deeply, scratching at his scruff and averting his eyes. “Lashing. Once from my Lord father, in the training yard for everyone to see…once when one of Joffrey’s playthings wasn’t taking his punishment quiet enough, so he had me stand it as an example.”

“Did it hurt?” she whispered.

He was quiet. “Like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

For a time she was silent, diligently working. Then, she spoke.

“I wish I could have been the one to kill the bastard.” she said plaintively. “I’ve never hated anyone more in my life.”

He huffed, furrowing his brow, and changed hands. “All things are not black and white, little wolf.”

She looked up him as she worked, curious, and he stared out the window.

“There was a time, when he was a pup,” he began, trailing off. “House Clegane had…sworn fealty to the Houses Lannister and Baratheon. We were to protect, serve. He wasn’t - he wasn’t _always_ such a fucking cunt, if you can believe it. He was curious, headstrong…loving, even. He loved his mother, where he was, the people around him. He used to beg me to hoist him up on my shoulders in the godswood, so he could pick berries and bring them to his uncles and grandfather. He’d pick a flower he was sure was some…magical herb, the cure to everything, and give it to me. To ‘help my face’, he said. Gregor never cared for the little whelp, but I was…fond of him. He cried to me once, ran and found me in the training yard. Said he was playing with his little toy bow and hit a squirrel. It think it was his first kill. The first of many, but he was destroyed over it. I didn’t think, then. Didn’t know what he’d turn into. A murderous, raping cunt like my dear brother.” He sniffed, letting the silence hang, punctuated only by the distant rumble of thunder and the crackling of the fire in the hearth. “So I told him…’sometimes, kings have to kill, little prince.’” He looked at her then, and she at him. “I helped him bury it, near the Weirwood with its eyes weeping blood. I was assigned as his sworn shield, I figured it was just part of the job.” He sighed deeply.

“Some men were not meant for power, little wolf. Cersei and Tywin whispered in his ear as he grew older, and with age his curiosity turned morbid and his love for the world because a lust for the violence that plagued it. On his thirteenth name-day, he command me to escort him to Flea Bottom to celebrate. Do you know what he did?”

“No.”

He bit his lip. “He bid be stand guard while he raped a scullery maid from one of that Baelish cunt’s brothels. He, er…had her every which way, or all the ways a boy his age can. And when he was finished he took his knife and……” He stared at the floor, mouth moving soundlessly. “…She was…screaming. I could hear her. And I did nothing - _could_ do nothing. He killed her. Tortured her for over an hour, and then killed her. Started to skin her alive, I understood, but got bored a quarter of the way through.”

His head hung low.

“She was twelve, ‘freshly flowered’, the merchant had said. Only a girl, and I could do nothing to help her, or it was off to Illyn Payne with me. Do you know what Joffrey said to me that night?”

“No.”

“Sometimes kings have to kill, dog.”

Silence fell again, so heavy she felt as if she could unsheathe her knife and puncture it.

“I knew then that he was truly lost.” He said at last. “Yet the Queen would not listen to the baying of a dog like me, no matter how loud…and to this day I do not know if the King was ignoring the monster growing steadily before him or if he was too drunk to notice.”

Arya stared into the fire, shadows dancing on the stone walls.

“Why didn’t you desert?” she said quietly. “Before the Blackwater.”

He was silent for a time, scratching his beard. “I knew nothing but the West, and King’s Landing. It was my home.”

“You didn’t relish the killing, then?”

“Aye, ‘course I relished the killing. Was the only thing I was good at, other than riding. Hunting.”

She was quiet, squeezing the water over his wounds. “You were bigger than all of them. Stronger than all of them. Meryn Trant. Boros.” She hesitated. “Joffrey.”

He was silent.

“You didn’t have to listen to them,” she continued. “You could have killed all of them. Made your own way.”

“A dog serves his master,” he gruffed, averting his eyes. “But he does no more than his appointed task.”

She regarded him for a time, and then quietly spoke for only him to hear. “Then you are not a dog.”

His tense, muscled body was covered in scars; some from battle, from tourneys. Some from his time in service to Joffrey. And some, the most recent, for her _._ Lions and Rats alike, all for her, even the blood that now seeped through the bandages, that now stained his blades - for _her._

And then, as if in a trance, she found herself gently lowering her lips to the wound upon his neck. His breath hitched in his throat, yet he said nothing nor made any attempt to stop her. Apprehension melting away, she continued her ministrations.

With a splash she dropped the rag into the water bucket, and moved to grasp his whiskery face with both of her hands. He gazed back at her, silent and stoic as stone. Gently, as gentle as she’d ever done anything, she turned his head and pressed a soft kiss to his bloodied temple and lingered there, pressing her nose into his hair to inhale the rich scent of pine, smoke and sweat. Her hands ghosted downwards, to the broad, muscular planes of his hairy chest, and slowly his own slipped over them.

He held her hands almost reverently, hanging his head to look down at them. Her own, so soft and small, compared to his- large and weathered, and at once gentle.

As soon as it had began, the spell was broken. He stood suddenly, knocking her the bucket and startling her from her reverie. He towered over her, quickly shrugging his tunic over his shoulders and staring down at her with a hard look upon his scarred face. She knit her brow, raising a tentative hand to reach to him - but he tore his gaze from hers and turned away on his heel, snatching a flagon of wine from the table and his cloak from the hooks as he passed in one swift motion, closing the door behind him with a resounding slam that shook the walls around her.

She looked down at her hands as if in a dream, trembling slightly and still feeling his touch.

⥈


	6. Arya & Hound I

 Night had long since fallen, yet still he was gone.  _Perhaps drinking. Or whoring. Or both._ Glowering at nothing in particular, Arya sank lower into the wash tub, hugging her knees and engulfing herself beneath the dwindling suds. It had been two days since she'd had a proper bath, one with hot water and lavender sprigs from the kind old apothecary woman that lived on the very edge of Sanctuary's square. She supposed now was as good a time as any for privacy, as after much hand-wringing, wailing, and gnashing of teeth she had quite squarely convinced herself that after the monumental fuck-up of that afternoon the Hound would never again return. She cursed herself; the one person in the world she didn't mind and that in turn didn't mind her, and she'd managed to push - no,  _shove_ him away with the silly girlish mooning and eyelash batting that she'd always mocked. It didn't become someone like her, she supposed. Despite her every effort, she simply was not made to be any lord's lady. 

Sighing, she rose from the tub and carefully placed her feet upon the floor, grabbing the sheet she'd set aside for some semblance of clothing. 

Then with a start she heard the door opening and closing again, the unmistakable sound of his boots upon the wooden plank floor - and she scrambled wildly to cover herself with the sheet, clutching it to her breast and turning in time to see him. 

His huge figure eclipsed the firelight, filling the doorway and leaning heavily against the frame. His chest rose and fell as he regarded her through hooded eyes, watching and grinding his jaw. Just when she was sure he would turn to leave again, he was straightening and taking a step towards her, and another, and reached to unclasp his cloak. It fell to the floor in a heap behind him. Still he moved closer, until he was towering over her. She felt her lip tremble as she looked up at him, shrinking away.

He raised a a large hand to her face - slowly, hesitantly, as if he were afraid that she would shatter beneath his touch like fine porcelain. His fingers gently grasped her chin, tilting her to look up at him, doe-eyed and her brow creased in questioning. As he gazed stonily down at her, his thumb rose to tenderly brush the tears from her cheek. 

Her lips parted, and she slipped her own soft hand over his larger one, feeling the tanned, weathered skin beneath her fingertips. 

"Is this what you want?" 

When he spoke, it was merely a whisper; but so deep and so very, very close, his lips merely a breath from her own.

She closed her eyes and felt every word, and was at once warm. 

" _Yes._ " 

"I am not worthy of you," Their noses touched. "I am only a dog." 

"No," she whispered. "A man." 

Right then, she could have drowned in his eyes. Lust and rage and  _passion_ seemed to war within them, looking deep into her own. Tipping her chin, he closed his eyes and brushed his whiskers lightly over her, nuzzling her nose, whispering over her eyelids and her cheeks, and then at last pressed a soft, tentative kiss to her parted lips. After what seemed an eternity they at last separated, and he pressed his forehead to hers. 

The dam broke. With a breathy sigh she reached up for him, and he bent to allow her arms to wrap daintily around his neck as he wound his own low around her waist. She pressed into him, and their embrace deepened; hot, sweet breaths intermingling and growing more and more urgent as they kissed and gasped and sighed. She found herself being gently lifted from her feet and pressed into the wall, inhaling sharply as he nuzzled the crook of her neck, trailing whiskery kisses.

"I am not gentle," he breathed, punctuating it with a nip of her bottom lip. 

"It's alright," she whispered back, feeling her face grow hot. 

Outside, the rain fell steadily; softly pelting the roof in a comforting drone. There came a distant rumble of thunder as he lifted her higher into his arms and laid her upon the bed with him. He raised his hands to the sheet winding haphazardly around her body, tugging gently at it. When it slipped away she turned her face and bit her lip as her arms instinctually came up to cover herself, hoping to the gods he wouldn’t notice her swiftly reddening cheeks. With a grunt he nuzzled and nipped her, encouraging her to bare herself to him.

But then he was pushing back to stand over her as she watched him, gaze locked upon hers, hands unbuckling his leather sword belt and letting it drop to the ground beside his cloak with a quiet thump. Then came his tunic, which he shrugged over his head and threw haphazardly to the side. _Built like an aurochs. And as hairy as one, to boot._ His jaw ticked and she thought she saw him flex a little for her, and that would have made her laugh if she wasn’t busy admiring him. Finally his fingers moved down, to work methodically at the laces of his breeches and let them fall in a bunch around his ankles, so that he was clothed only in the thin cotton braie that was already stretched tight, cut off halfway up his thick, hairy thighs.

As she watched he kneeled upon the bed once more, moving on all fours like a feral dog to come over her and bite at her neck, leaving little marks she was sure to admire later. He was laying on his side beside her, looking down at her and letting her kiss his lips, ghosting fingers up and down her hip. His large hand came between them, resting on her much smaller arm, thumb stroking - and began to pull. She let him do so, and soon she was completely exposed to him, her arms splayed above her head. He looked down at her with reverence, eyes roving over her body as if in a dream, unsure of where to touch her first. His whiskers tickled deliciously against her skin as he bent to kiss at her breasts, again and again, sucking slightly at her pink peaks as she keened beneath him. She wondered briefly is Lords did this to their ladies, thinking that she didn’t feel much like a highborn lady with him touching her like this.

The hand wandered across her belly,his palm warm and rough, and slid tantalizingly down, towards the little patch of hair between her legs. She caught his hand with her own, suddenly struck timid as she looked up at him from her place in the crook of his arm.

“Mmph,” he murmured against her ear, a rumbling deep in his chest. She allowed his hand to slide farther down, pressing her legs together tightly. His hand caressed her almost expertly, hand stroking the little mound but not quite _there,_ encouraging her to part her legs for him. With a whiskery kiss to her reddening cheek, he slipped a single digit over her folds, stroking upwards and downwards almost lazily. She gasped quietly at the contact, reaching to wrap her arms around his neck and spreading her legs wider to welcome his ministrations.

“Aye, she likes that,” he murmured, and she bit her lip at the sight as he brought two thick fingers into his mouth, wetting them generously.

She gasped again, overwhelmed as his hand returned to draw gentle circles over her nub and tease at her entrance. Slowly, achingly slowly, he slid the tip of his finger inside her and began to pump. Encouraged by her sighing and gasping and the slight bucking of her hips, he added a second digit and carefully slid deeper, his thumb rubbing out a gentle rhythm that made her breathless.

“Mmm,” he grunted, and with a nuzzle of her cheek he moved lower, trailing open-mouthed kisses over her breasts and down her belly, until he was kneeling before her as she looked down at him. He hooked his hands on her thighs and dragged her closer, spreading them apart to allow himself a better angle, and looked upon her with hooded eyes as if it were a meal. A gentle nip at her inner thigh made her jump, quickly sated by his firm grip.

He nuzzled her gently, so _close_ but yet not where she longed for him - and then suddenly his tongue was _there._ She gasped, clutching at the sheets as he licked again, tracing a stripe from top to bottom, pausing to gently kiss and suckle at her nub before lapping at her entrance again. “ _Hound,_ ” she managed weakly, a hand tangling in his dark, wavy hair. His whiskers were deliciously rough against the sensitive flesh, and before long she was moving her hips desperately with the rhythm of his tongue. He pressed warningly on her stomach, holding her firmly in place to continue his ministrations. Oh, gods - his tongue, his lips, his sharp brown eyes like knives as he continued to devour her. Her legs were weak, she was sure she was seeing stars, his head was circling between her thighs with vigor now, and at once she came apart like a howling hurricane, mewling and keening to his touch, writhing beneath him.

He came over her once more, moving on all fours, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His whiskers were wet, and when he bent to kiss at her she tasted herself on his lips as she struggled to catch her breath again.

Letting her down from the high, he allowed her to touch and explore him as he held her, watching her with hooded eyes as she drew her palms over his breast. Their lips met again. She held his face in her hands, stroking his whiskery cheeks and sighing into each one, until she decided to press the boundary. She moved to his burns, making to kiss them, but his large hand shot up and snatched her wrist. Their lips broke apart, him panting slightly.

She creased her eyebrows. “What?”

He shook his head, still catching his breath. “Not there.”

“Why not?” she whispered.

“You know bloody well ‘why not’.”

“I love your face,”

“Not that part.”

She glared at him then, eyes flashing dangerously. “It is your face and I will touch any part of you that I wish, dog.”

His gaze softened as he looked upon her, brow furrowed. She was starting him back ruthlessly in the eye, and though he searched, he found no inkling of disgust.

“You really aren’t afraid of it.”

“Of course I’m not afraid of it,” she whispered, and he thought not for the first time that night that she looked wolfish and beautiful, flushed red and keening beneath him for his touch. “The Septa always said a man’s scars tell a story. That scars mean he is brave, that he’s lived a life full.”

There seemed to be fire in his eyes again, as he kissed at her with renewed vigor. This time, his hand did not stop her from caressing the burns as she did the rest of him. Before long she traveled traveled lower, and she slipped a small hand down his small clothes to caress him, watching his reaction. He hummed with appreciation and drew her hips closer to his, beginning a gentle rocking rhythm, thrusting through the fabric. She ground against him, urging him on, the sensation of his arousal against her not quite enough to satisfy her own wanting.

“We…don’t have to,” he murmured against her lips, the movement of hips rolling and circling and intoxicating. “We can just…play and rub, like this…you’ll still be maiden, for your lord husband…”

“No,” she panted, wrapping her legs tighter around his waist and reaching desperately up for him, wanting him closer. “… _please,_ Hound, please…” There was no one in the seven kingdoms she would rather give her maidenhood, no one in the world. There wasn’t going to _be_ a lord husband, she knew - that life had been gone since the moment Illyn Payne swung the sword. She didn’t _want_ a lord husband, only him, him and him alone, him and his brown eyes looking deep into hers and his wandering hands and his - his - _everything._ “Please…” she kissed whatever she could reach, pressing her hips against his, desperate for more contact. “ _Please,_ ”

There was some deep, animal attraction that drove her wanting, her rutting, as well as his. He grunted lowly at her keening, nipping at her ear, and shoved a hand between their bodies to free himself from the confines of his smallclothes. Breathless beneath him as he panted and kissed her, she reached and tugged them impatiently down his hips, until he was bared to her. Looking up at him, she took him in hand; his manhood was steel beneath silk, thick and hot and throbbing in her gentle grasp. She could not wrap her hands fully around it, but he didn’t seem to mind this in the slightest as he moaned lowly against her ear when she gave it a slow, experimental stroke, thrusting his hips slightly to her movements. She bit her lips, reveling in the sounds he was making: a low moan, a grunt, a deep sigh.

Then he moved her hands and lowered his hips so that his manhood pressed flush against her entrance. She gasped at the contact, and he moved his shaft up and down over her opening with a roll of his hips, holding himself above her.

“Aye,” he panted, nipping at her neck. “Look how wet she is.” The reddened, angry head of his manhood glistened with moisture before it disappeared once more between her folds. She felt herself becoming close again, and clutched him tighter.

“I like that,” she whispered, biting her lip. In response he rolled his hips more vigorously, the tip hitting her spot _just_ so, and she mewled quietly.

“Ready?” he whispered.

She nodded, brow creased, her arms wrapped around his neck and legs around his waist. He shifted lightly, looking into her eyes as he lowered a hand to adjust himself, and then pushed in so that the plump head of his manhood was cradled with her. She gasped and clutched at him, the feeling foreign. “Aye?” he panted, and she nodded again. He pushed in more, stretching and filling her, until she felt his balls flatten against her bottom. It hurt, but the pain was slight - and nothing compared to the fullness, the feeling of him inside of her. She enjoyed the pain, finding herself wanting more, kissing him again to encourage him to move.

“Alright, sweetling?” he murmured, voice heavy and deep with arousal.

“Yes,” she whispered, pressing her face into his neck.

“Good girl,” he slid out slowly, and then in again, turning his head so his lips were pressed to her ear. “ _Good_ girl,” he moaned again, and after a few more strokes he was able to slide in much easier, rolling his hips deliciously and nipping at her earlobe.

After a while of careful, measured stroking the pain began to ebb; she wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and began to move her hips in time with his, urging him on. “More,” she whimpered. “More.” He obliged her, slowly ramping up, pumping luxuriously between her legs. She mewled lustfully, positively rutting now, and soon he gathered her in his arms and roughly flipped her, putting her on all fours and dragging her towards him.

She arched her back for him and before long he was pounding, grunting and growling forcefully with pleasure and ferocity. He was close behind her, sweaty skin to sweaty skin, his lips pressed to her ear, strong arms on either side of her - and she was clutching up behind her at his hair, clawing at his whiskery face in desperation and gasping for him as he muttered filth and sweet nothings into her ear.

A hand came up to grasp her firmly by the neck from behind. “Mother almighty,” he grunted, breathing ragged. “Tight little thing.”

She was in his arms again as he adjusted her, flipping her over again with ease, spreading her shaking thighs apart and hiking her leg up high to his hip, swiftly entering her once more. His pounding was hard enough to bang their bed against the wall violently, making little whimpers slip from her lips. His hand gripped the headboard above her, another pinning one of her small hands to the sheet, interlocking his fingers with hers. He held her gaze with an animalistic intensity, and she was looking up at him, her cheeks flushed and her heart hammering in her chest. “Hound,” she whimpered, both in pain and in pleasure, and he swore lowly.

“ _Fuck._ ”

Before long he changed their position again, kneeling upon their bed and holding her on his lap to let her ride him with her legs astride his thighs, grinding and dragging her hips with his big hands on her arse while she clung to him, winding an arm around his neck and pressing her forehead against his. She let him move her the way he wanted, kissing his lips as he had his way, furiously grunting out his pleasure.  

He was beginning to feel himself slip into his climax now, panting, and it was right good. He sped up, and it didn’t take long. “Arya, girl,” he moaned, dragging her backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, faster and faster until he stilled her hips and took over, pounding and thrusting. 

“Hound,” she whimpered again, pressing her lips to his, and all he could do was swear hopelessly as they rutted wildly towards their finish. He moaned lowly again, nipping at her ear, and after a strangled, satisfied grunt she felt a pleasant warmth spread through her core, oozing onto her thigh. They collapsed together, with him atop her and mindful not to hurt her with his weight. 

She held him, face red and completely breathless, with a small smile upon her lips. It was strangely cozy with her arms around him. His face was buried in her neck, and she could hear him breathing heavily, feel his chest heave and his heart pound. He'd broken a sweat. She reached to the back of his head, into his hair to caress his neck. "Was it good?" she asked at last. 

"Shut up and I'll tell you," he murmured against her ear, and then kissed her cheek. He heaved himself off of her and onto his back beside her, and already she missed the comforting weight of him atop her. He covered his eyes with his forearm, chest still heaving. "Seven hells, girl," he rumbled. 

" _Was_ it good?" she whispered. 

"Aye," he panted. "It was good." 

As he caught his breath, she moved closer to him and laid her head on him, atop his chest. After a time he lifted his head and looked down, raising the covers up. "You've bled." Knitting his brow, he rolled over and rummaged in the night drawer, producing a rag of cotton. Gently, he cleaned her thoroughly of his seed and her maiden's blood. When he finished, he drew her closer to him, entangled in the sheets and furs. Her small hand found his broad, hairy chest and stroked, listening to his steady heartbeat and closing her eyes. 

"Does this mean I'm your woman now?" she whispered, and he was silent. 

"Aye," he said at last, voice heavy. 

The monster in his chest was content. 

### ⥈

In the night she was gently awoken, stirring and reaching her hand out blindly to feel his absence in the bed beside her. Disoriented, she swung her feet over the side and wrapped the sheet around her body to pad softly into the den. 

He was reclining there in his chair, his fist opening and closing as he stared into the flames, as if in some trance. In his other hand he held a half-empty flagon of wine, and as she watched he raised it to his lips and pulled deeply from it. 

Rubbing her eyes, she approached and slid her arms around his neck from behind, pressing her nose to the sweet-smelling hair at his temple. "Mmmph...what time is it?" 

"Not yet past the small hours," he said quietly. 

"What is it?"  

"Nothing." He did not meet her eyes, his fist opening and closing, opening and closing. "A dream." 

"What dream?" she whispered, stroking his hair. 

"I...dreamt I was a lad again." For a moment, he was silent. He seemed to be far away, the flickering light of the hearth playing upon the hard lines of his face. Then at last, he spoke, slowly and deliberately. "I walked a field of yellow that stretched on before me for miles. The amber grain brushed beneath my fingertips, and the sun was high and warm upon my skin. I could feel it, like I was there. I was...happy. And yet, when I looked down, I found the earth had disappeared from beneath my feet. Before me there was a great black specter of a dog that opened its maw and swallowed me whole in a rush of flame." He creased his brow, and she could see the thin sheen of sweat upon his skin. "Smoldering...eager... _hungry_ flames. They were alive. Reaching for me, like spindly fingers. As I watched, they turned from yellow to orange, and from orange to green. I tried to run, but a hundred hands grasped my legs, bogging me down and closing all around, never to escape. And as I screamed, they pressed me into the flames. I called to my mother, and to my father. But they were already dead. Only a pile of ash and bone, sifting through my fingers like sand."  His jaw ticked, and he raised the flagon to his lips once more, and when he was finished he let it hang loosely in his hand. "I dreamt...I dreamt I saw a great wave...of broken ships and wildfire...climbing swiftly over the Blackwater, and the green hills of the Crownlands, swallowing the earth in a tide of water and flame. I stood upon the brink, upon the battlements of the Red Keep, unable to move or speak." He raised a hand to his chest, where hers were crossed over his heart, and gently caressed her with his thumb. "I dream of trumpets, and charges long past, and the clamor of swords. Of rain and blood and bodies piled before the gate. And a squire I could not save, no more than ten. Ran down by a great stag wreathed in flame." 

"Dreams are just that," Arya whispered. "Dreams." 

He ground his jaw, staring into the fire. His fist clenched and opened, clenched and opened. " _Ghosts._ " 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gentle reminder: This is an entirely crack!, aged-up AU. I do not and never will ship a child with a grown man nor will I write smut of said characters. Arya is 19, nearing 20, the events of the books and show having taken longer to transpire rather than just under six months. Rather Ned, Arya, and Sansa were allowed to grow accustomed to and even comfortable in King's Landing, living there for about three years, making Arya sixteen when King Robert was murdered and Ned fell from grace. The events with the brotherhood and Harrenhal transpire as in canon, and then she is "captured" by the Hound, growing accustomed to him over the near four years that they travel together, until after multiple foiled ransom attempts they accept that being on the run is their life and make plans for a more stable future. The Hound, on the other hand, is book age rather than show age - about 29, near 30.


	7. Arya IV

  _Start by pulling him out of the fire..and hope that he will forget the smell._

_He was supposed to be an angel, but they took him from that light and turned him into something hungry, something that forgets what his hands are for when they aren't shaking._

_He will lose so much, and you will watch it all happen because you had him first, and you would let the world break its own neck if it means keeping him._

_Star by wiping the blood from his chin and pretending to understand. Repeat to yourself, 'I won't leave you, I won't leave you' until you fall asleep and dream of the place where nothing is red._

_When is a monster not a monster?_

_Oh, when you love it._

Arya awoke on her own for the first time in ages. The sunlight, cool and blue in the quiet autumn morning, fell upon their bed in ethereal lines, one after another. They had made love again in the small hours, and, unable to keep apart, had fallen asleep naked and entangled beneath the furs. The dreams that haunted his sleep before seemed to be forgotten, at least for a moment; as she lay upon the broad expanse of his chest, which rose and fell rhythmically along with the gentle snoring that told her he had at last fallen fast asleep. A large arm was draped protectively around her, the other sprawled carelessly to the side. She looked up at him through hooded eyes,  her hand ever so gently caressing him, fingers ghosting over the hair and the scars and the muscles. She wished to learn every plane, every divot, every nick and cut. 

_He is so young._ In the early morning light and in the tranquility of sleep, it was more apparent to her. The lines in his hardened face were softened, nearly gone, and no more did she seem to notice the scarring of his childhood. His heavy eyelids, his whiskery lips, his hair an enchanting muss of waves that she resisted the urge to reach into and run her fingers through. 

As she watched, entranced, he shifted and inhaled deeply through his nose, murmuring lowly from the side of his mouth. 

"Stop staring at me, girl." 

"Sorry," she whispered, but did not stop. The arm around her drew her closer to his side, the thumb stroking her. 

"We must rise," she whispered, as they had been laying in comfortable silence for some time. She was unused to being idle, especially so with him, On the road they were always moving, always looking forward to the next thing - there was never time to stop, never time to...be. 

"Aye," he exhaled through his nose. "We must." 

"Or," she murmured, a small smile dancing across her lips. 

"Or." He echoed her mischievous sentiments, and his hand lifted the furs as he looked pointedly at her bare body beneath. She playfully batted him, and with a growl he caught her in his arms and pulled her close, rolling to have her atop him as she giggled. She kissed him deeply, cupping his face in her small hands, and then trailed her finger over his lips and down his chest, lower and lower as he watched her lustily with that damned lopsided smirk that always made her heart skip a beat.

In the afterglow of their morning tumble, they lay entangled once more, reluctant to leave the warm embrace of sleep, of the bed, the furs, one another. She sighed deeply, and he lazily ran his fingers up and down her spine. 

After a drawn stretch of silence, she at last spoke. 

"When I was a girl," she began, pausing. "My father told me that one day, I'd marry a High Lord and rule his castle and bear his sons. That my children would be knights and princes and lords and ladies, and I'd be content to the very end of my days." 

"And what did you say to that?" He rumbled.

She picked absently at her palm. "...that's not  _me._ " 

"No," he said, smirking. "It isn't." 

She looked up at him crossly. "And what's that supposed to mean?" 

"Nothing, truly. Only," he glanced down at her from one open eye, raising his good brow. "Castles and knights, princes and lords...all that lofty shite is for pretty little birds cooped up in their pretty little cages, chirping away at their pretty little songs. You may have a song to sing......but you are no caged bird, she-wolf." 

She was silent. 

"Your sons won't be princes and knights," he continued. "They'll be warriors, and wolves. That much I know, Arya Stark." 

_Your sons._ A small smile played upon her lips.  _Our sons._ "And what of my castle, dog?"

"Ach," he rumbled gently. "Wolves don't need castles. The woods are their kingdoms." 

"Our kingdom," she whispered, looking up at him. In turn, he looked down at her, lowering to press his forehead gently to hers and closing his eyes. 

"I have a...a very strange feeling with you." He said quietly, after a time.

"Do you?"  _You're going soft, dog._

“As if...as if I had a knife, somewhere in my side.” He raised a large hand and touched himself, pressing his fingers into his ribs to illustrate as he searched for the words. “Near my heart. Like you’d put it there. And if you were to leave......well. I reckon it’d come out, and I’d take to bleeding internally.” She felt his hand come between them and tip her chin upwards, and his lips near her ear as he whispered. “As for you, little wolf...” he nipped lightly, and her eyes closed, her head lolling back.

“ _You will be the death of me.”_

* * *

 

The dog had, at last, laid with the wolf; and what once was borne of pure necessity had at once become an ardent intimacy. No longer was he only her pack, but her _mate_ ; and though neither would admit this sentiment, it was immediately apparent in the quiet days and moons that followed their imperfect union.

In the days they would ride side by side and perform the duties they had promised the Elder, patrolling the walls and warding off any wayward wanderer that would seek to do the town of Sanctuary harm. They hunted together, trained together, fought together. She would do her best to prepare meals for them, and he would chop wood for their hearth and field the meat for their table.

In the nights their passions would often overwhelm all else; a tangled, sweaty mess of skin and kisses and bites and grunts, they would make love to one another and forget all else. Rutting like dogs or caressing as the sweetest of lovers in songs and legends and verse - they did not care, so long as they were close.

“Hound,” she whispered his name one evening, still breathless and red in the face.

“Mm?” He answered with a grunt, looking quite pleased with himself.

“I…” she watched his reaction carefully, worrying her lip. “I’ve not had my blood in two moons.”

Catching his breath, he looked down at her, curled up and looking very small in the crook of his arm. “Two moons?”

“Two moons.” She repeated softly.

“Aye,” He raised a large, warm hand to rest his palm over her belly. “A pup. And no wonder.” She thought she saw the ghost of a smile cross his lips, if only for a moment.

Autumn left the woods soon after, turning the trees from green to gold, the sun fading and the nights becoming still and quiet; Winter came only a moon later, bringing with it the beginnings of the snow and ice. And there was peace, for a time. Hope. A promise of something good, something _new._

Yet always in the shadows of Wolves, Lions lurked.


	8. Hound III

The ground was cold and hard beneath his paws, unyielding. The heavy breaths he took hung in the air in a billowing mist, mysterious and translucent in the glow of the latent moonlight, high above the treetops and drifting clouds. From the hill he stood looking down upon, he could see a wide, inky swath of the forest, sprawling before his yellow eyes like the sea he had once known in his youth. Something about that sent a pang through his body, a feeling he could not quite place - a feeling he knew was not his own. 

He was always watching these days, it seemed. Watching the outskirts of villages, of menfolk in their camps. Watching the pack he followed. Watching over  _her._

The She-Wolf was beautiful to him, and he was inexplicably, completely drawn to her; yet the others, her little cousins, were afraid of his scent. And it was no wonder. Menfolk, cruel and as they were, drove off the wolves. But the Dog they were not frightened of, for to all the Dog was considered a friend. The menfolk would coo to him, throw scraps. He ate what they gave when the need arose, but would ignore their beckoning, eager hands. And yet still he smelt of them and their strange water and heady musks, no matter how often he rolled in the mud - and so he followed at a distance until her moon rose again and she called for him to be near. 

Not that she needed his protection in the least bit; but he would offer it, nonetheless. For he was a Dog, and a dog is nothing if he is not loyal. Watching, waiting. Her bright eyes stared back at him as she prowled the edge of the forest restlessly, there at the base of his hill. He was a strong as her, as big as her, a freak of nature. There was true North in him, just as she  _was_ the North. A hound, as black as the night itself. A shadow at her heels. A watcher in the night. 

And this night, the silence ran as deep as the red river. 

His ears pricked, swiveling forward. The large head raised, a deep growl making its way from the depths of his chest. 

_Lions,_ the gentle wind seemed to whisper. 

They ran.

The girl was looking at him with  _those_ eyes again. He steeled himself against it, knowing the inevitable, cursing the chink she'd managed to find in his carefully layered armor. 

"I don't want to raise our babe here." She said quietly, breath streaming the air before her. Stranger's hoves clopped quietly on the cobblestone beside them where the he held his reigns, readying to mount up for home; the sky was dark and decidedly quiet, twinkling with a tapestry of stars. She gazed up at him in earnest, clutching the cloak - his cloak - around her shoulders, looking very small. 

"It could be a fine home," he said, keeping his voice as light as he could manage. The shitty wine from Sanctuary's only working tavern was making him poky. "We've land to farm...animals to raise. Wares to sell..." 

"It's not  _safe._ " 

"Nowhere is, girl. Nowhere in Westeros." 

She glanced down, seemingly very interested in the toe of her boot. "Then let's leave." 

He halted in his tracks. "Leave?" 

"Yes," she continued. "Like you said we would, those moons ago when we first set foot here. Cross the narrow sea to whatever is beyond. To  _Braavos._ " 

"I said a lot of things," he gruffed.  _Nothing is lost upon her, sharp as she is._ "But that was before." 

"Before what?" she followed him closely. 

"Before I took you to bed and put a pup in you, girl. Before we were...us." 

"We would still be us," she murmured, reaching up to a press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. "Anywhere else in the world." 

"The babe..." 

"I want the best for our child, Hound." 

"And I want the best for you both. I can protect you here. I know the land, her people..." 

"And yet," she whispered, quieter now. "Here we are marked. Traitors to the crown...the Mad Dog and the Stark bitch," 

He winced at the monikers, and Stranger snorted. 

"We can't stay here." she continued. "The Elder knew us, who is to say he won't give us away?" 

"He hasn't yet." 

"No. But he could. Here we can never rest...ever. But across the sea...there's a whole new life for us." He sighed, and she buried her nose into his chest so that she could hear his heartbeat, inhaling deeply, and whispered only for him to hear. "We don't have to be what they made us anymore." 

"No," he murmured. "We don't." 

"Our child...it's a chance to start over. To be better than we are. What we used to be." 

To be better. Wasn't it what he wanted, truly? To shed all that he was, to be reborn from the ashes. Not a hound, but a man - a man with hopes, with a  _family._

No. This world, cruel and unjust as it was, simply wouldn't let him forget. He would always be a dog, and nothing more. And their pup...what had he condemned them to? 

Red hot anger - no, not anger, but something else, something he'd never felt before - seemed to well up inside him, just upon the cusp of boiling over. 

"What is it?' she asked, brow knit in concern. "What's wrong?" 

"It's nothing." 

"It's something," she insisted, and he wouldn't look her in the eyes. "Tell me." 

"I said it's nothing." He growled. "Leave it." 

Taken aback, she lowered her hand, but quickly raised it again to grasp his chin firmly and turn him to look her in the eye. "You wouldn't be so cross if it was nothing." 

" _I've made you an outcast,_ " he snapped suddenly, and she stepped back, brow creased. "Seven fucking hells, I've doomed you both!" 

"You haven't - you haven't  _doomed_ us, what on - where on earth did this -?" 

"Anywhere we go, they'll know me. They'll be frightened - one look at...at this  _face_ and they'll know and it'll be all over, for you just as well as for me. We can never go home, neither one of us, ever." She laid a tentative hand on his arm but he shrugged it away, turning his back to her and running a hand widely through his hair. "And the child -  _the child!_ \- what if...what if it's..." he looked at her one this shoulder, speaking softly. "What if it's like me? Like...like  _him_. _"_

"Hound," she said, grasping him firmly, bringing him slowly back down to the earth. "You listen to me. You listen well -  _no! Look at me._ You are  _nothing_ like your brother. The babe...the babe will be like us. Like you, like me, all that's good in us, however fucked up we are." She gazed up at him, eyes ablaze with the same fiery passion he'd come to know. "You're right. We can't go home. Because we're already there. Where we go, you and I - that's home." 

He gazed down at her, face stony. "Aye, a cozy sentiment. A sentiment that's not very well going to take care of a blade at our throats or any wayward angry mobs, but I do appreciate it." He turned from her again. 

"Oh, charming," she drawled. "Fine then, continue to mope. If you won't acknowledge - "

"Ach," he sighed, pinching his nose. "Don't give me that lofty shite about accepting myself again." 

" _Fuck_ accepting yourself, dog," she hissed. "That's not your problem - no, it's believing that  _someone else can!_ " 

"Here, keep it down," 

"I will  _not_ keep it down. I won't let you do this to yourself, not anymore." She jutted out her chin, and right at that moment he would have done anything for her, anything in the world. Her lip trembled, and she gazed at him straight in the eye, sharp grey into brown. "I love you." 

"Gods," he groaned. 

"I love you." She repeated. "Do you want me to shout it? Would that get it through your thick skull?" 

"Seven save me," 

She inhaled deeply, raising her chin dramatically. "I LO- _mmph,_ " 

Her cry was cut short as he bent to capture her lips, pressing her body flush against his. At long last he broke the kiss, panting. "Do you know what your problem is, Arya Stark?" 

"Enlighten me," she breathed, gazing heavy-lidded at him through those come hither eyes, the ones that made his heart skip a beat. 

"You don't know when to stop talking." 

⤝ ⤞

Arya awoke at midnight in his arms, as was becoming, their breaths intermingling and her nose pressed to the underside of his beard. Eyes fluttering shut as she sighed in contentment, she turned her face, searching, until her lips brushed against the warmth of his skin. She kissed her way up his neck, and he stirred in his sleep, humming appreciatively as she reached and drew her arms around his shoulders, pressing a kiss behind his ruined ear. Sighing, she rested her cheek against his, burying her nose into his hair and clutching him to her breast. 

The pleasant warmth of their fire permeated throughout the cabin, crackling merrily in the hearth. 

Only it _wasn’_ t their fire, she realized with a start. She raised her eyes - smoke was slowly but surely beginning to fill the room, and now that she was fully awake she could hear a quiet roar steadily growing nearby. _Shit. Fuck._

_“_ Hound,” Arya disentangled herself from his arms and shook him. “Hound!” _Shit._

He tossed away from her, mumbling in his heavy sleep. He’d had a flagon of wine before bed - there could not have been a worse time for him to be drunk off his head.

“Hound!” She said, more urgently, and sprung up, pulling a long tunic on over her nakedness and snatching the large pack that held some of their belongings from the floor at the foot of their bed. Her head swam, disorientation and panic clouding her mind. Outside, Stranger and Craven brayed and pawed impatiently at their stalls, spooked. Somewhere, a part of the house collapsed with a great clamor. Looking around desperately and tugging on her breeches, she spotted the full wash basin at the foot of their bed. Panting, she grabbed it.

“Get _UP,_ you lazy sack of shit!” She shouted, and tossed the cold water over him with a grunt of effort.

He shot up, disoriented and swinging his arms. “Th’ fuck did you - “ Then his half-asleep eyes widened in fear, and he scrambled backwards off of their bed, as far from the blaze roaring on the roof as he could possibly get. His chest rose and fell wildly.

Arya swung their large pack onto her back and moved to him, grabbing his large hand with both of her own and tugging. “We must go!”

He shook his head, entranced by the flames.

“Hound, move your arse!” She coughed, the smoke stinging her eyes.

He simply would not move. She threw herself onto her knees before him, grasping his whiskery face in her small hands. “ _Look at me.”_ She breathed. His eyes were locked above her, and the great fear in them was apparent, reflecting the flames. It was as if he were frozen by some spell, his breathing coming deep and labored. She shook him violently. “ _Look at me!”_ She pressed a kiss to his bottom lip and finally his eyes met hers, his brow creased. “You must get up. You have to walk - Hound, you have to come with me or we’re going to die, _we’re going to die -_ ”

“Yes, _”_ he croaked, blinking and looking into her eyes. “Yes…yes.”

In seconds he was up, still nodding his head and murmuring to himself, grasping her hand tightly and shoving his feet into his boots, not bothering to strap them and snatching the steel from beneath the bed. She led him by the hand through the house, avoiding the burning rubble from the caved-in roof. When they reached the door, she found that she could not open it.

“Shit,” she swore, giving it another useless shove. “ _Shit!_ ”

He moved her aside, and with one heave of his shoulder, it splintered open. Growling, he kicked the remaining wood away and pulled her through the door with him, into the biting cold of the night. They ran from the flames and turned, backing away and watching as the blaze overtook the house.

“It was barred,” he said, motioning to the log that had been set in front of the door. “By someone who wanted us dead. We must be gone,”

He gave a sharp whistle with two fingers and Stranger, foaming from the heat and the stress, came galloping from the burning wreckage - but the girl’s white mare did not follow. He caught the stallion’s reigns (thank the gods he at least had the sense to keep him saddled) and motioned for their pack.

“Wh-where’s Craven?” The girl said, staring expectantly into the night as the flames danced in her eyes. “Hound, where’s Craven?”

“Leave her, girl! Leave her!” He caught her by the wrist and tried to pull her away, but she slipped free, his hand grasping at air.

“ _Craven!_ ” She screamed hoarsely, running wildly towards the stable. _“CRAVEN!”_

_“Gahhh what the the FUCKING -_ “ she whipped around just as the stable collapsed with an almighty uproar and burst of flame behind her, just in time to see a short man in Lannister armor hanging onto the Hound’s back like some absurd marsupial with his teeth sunk deep into his neck, an unearthly amount of blood gushing from the wound. She watched, shocked, as the Hound grabbed the man by the head with a growl and snapped his neck with a terrifying ‘crack’, tossing him off and over his shoulder onto the ground. “Cunt!” He roared, clutching his shoulder and glaring down at the dead man.

Biter. She would recognize those filed teeth anywhere.

She raced towards him - lanterns were appearing in the shadows of the trees like fireflies, horses brayed, gold and crimson armor shined in the firelight, surrounding them. In mighty swings of his great-sword he was attempting to keep them back, armorless and bleeding. He heard Arya let loose a violent, angry scream, turned to see her unsheathe her dagger, leap and plunge her knife into the neck of a soldier. The poor bugger clutched at her with a yelp but she stabbed him again and again - there was blood splattered across her face like war paint, her eyes were wide and her teeth bared. His sword clashed with another, and she scrambled to her next victim, slice, and stab, and slice slice, and _that’s where the heart is_ \- but the big brute, the one as big as him, he was too much, he knew it to be true as he turned again, reached a hand out towards her -

And time around him suddenly seemed slow, as if every second were an eternity. He watched the pommel collide with her head, saw her fall to the ground, struggling to stand, saw the soldier raise his sword for the killing blow - and all else faded away.

Red framed his vision, pulsing with the rapid beat of his heart, and he gave a mighty, primal roar that seemed to echo over the tree tops.

_⤝ ⤞_

_Seven Gods._

He stood there amongst a pile of corpses, his shoulders rising and falling with his labored breath. There was blood everywhere. His. Theirs. She had never seen so much _blood._

_Seven Gods above._

He had cut them all down. All of them - in a fit of rage so fierce in some cases he had cleft them in twain, right through their pretty armor like it was butter.

“Hound,” she whispered, chest rising and falling. She stood, and tentatively approached him.

On and on they rode, faster and faster, until the trees thickened and the ground grew uneven and treacherous beneath them. As the urgent sound of the dogs braying in the distance grew fewer and farther in between, she felt him slump in the saddle behind her; quickly, she took the reigns from his hands - which had grown alarmingly slack.

Something between a moan and a low grunt left his lips, and his eyes struggled to stay open. A thin sheen of sweat covered his forehead.

“ _Whoa,_ ” she cooed to Stranger, guiding him carefully down a slope to the banks of a small rushing ford, sending rocks skittering. He gave a whinny of protest, but obeyed, and allowed her to reign him in near the shore.

Almost immediately, the Hound fell from the saddle.

She leapt after him with a small cry, her heart pounding in her chest, and collapsed to her knees beside him. “No no no,” she muttered, fumbling with his cloak and tunic. “No no no….come on, come on- oh gods. _Oh gods._ ” She ripped his blood-soaked tunic aside, revealing the most monstrous wound she had ever seen. The flesh was torn, unrecognizable.

“Arya…” he rasped, chest rising and falling. His eyes did not open.

“I’m here,” she breathed. “I’m here. You’re fine, you’re fine - ”

“Seven hells…” he coughed, and his voice was weak. “I’m…not _fine,_ girl…”

“I-I don’t know what to do, Hound, _what do I do -_ there’s so much b-blood…” her own hands shook, and she could not still them.

“ _Nettleroot,_ ” he whispered, face contorting in pain. “ _…wine…boil it…”_

“Y-yes…” she reached around to the skin slung around her hip and fiddled with the cork, looking over her shoulder for the ingredients she required. “Yes.” Sticks for a fire, any would do. A patch of the elusive Nettleroot that grew beneath the soldier pines. The herb was (gracefully) nearby, though in building the fire she hesitated for fear of revealing their position with smoke, there was nothing else to be done. His pauldrons were in the pack; she retrieved one as Stranger pawed and snorted, and laid it over the embers as if it were a bowl, uncorking the wineskin and emptying it inside. Her heart pounded in her ribcage as she waited, restless, rubbing her hands together for warmth. His ragged breath came slowly and weakly as he laid beside her. She kept talking to him, about anything and everything, jousts and battles, tales of their homelands, anything to keep him awake. To keep him alive. Here. With her.

At last the blasted wine came to a boil, and she knotted her sleeves in her palms to grab it, quickly moving to his side.

He opened his eyes to look up at her, chest rising and falling, his brow knit upwards. Then, he rose a shaking hand and, with a grunt, tore a large strip from his tunic. He rolled it in one hand and placed it into his mouth as a gag, closing his eyes and nodding for her to get on with it.

She hesitated, impatiently raising a hand to wipe at the tears gathering in her eyes. Clenching her teeth and drawing her lips, she tipped it quickly over the wound. The sinister sound of searing, crackling flesh gave way to the Hound’s muffled cry of pain, cut short as he bit his tongue, arched his back and promptly went limp.

_“No._ ” She whispered, patting his cheek frantically. “No no no…come on, stay with me. Stay with me. Come back. You stupid git…don’t you know how much I love you…? Don’t leave me, not now, not after all - " 

 


	9. Arya V

 There was a story of the North her father had once told her, on nights where even Old Nan’s languorous voice could not manage to lull her to sleep. It was one that her grandfather Rickard had told him, and his grandfather before. A story straight from the bonfires of the First Men, with whom it was known the Starks were kin. It had always been her favorite, ever since she was a girl, for it told of the beginnings of their House and exactly how the first Winter came to be. Her father had always began it in a low and menacing voice, so rich and alight with mirth that she could see every burgeoning, lurid detail in his wide eyes as she sat curled beneath the covers, listening in earnest, hanging on to each and every word as if it were his last. He had always said that in the beginning, there was nothing…

And then, there was light.

The light came from the heart of a benevolent, lonely Goddess, who made for herself four men - brothers - of equal standing.

_You are to live here with me,_ said the Goddess. _Here the good earth is rich, and can provide for you. Here the water is clear, and will nourish and cleanse you. It is a good home. Do well unto yourselves and the Others I have made, and you shall live long and prosper as Kings of this plentiful land._

The four brothers looked upon their home and saw that it was true, and rejoiced. They lived long in harmony, until one day the youngest brother, afflicted by the whispers of an evil spirit, wondered aloud why they could never have any meat.

_We are kings, are we not?_ He proclaimed. _Should we not feast?_

So he wandered, and wandered more; and fashioned himself a bow from the wood of a Heart tree, and walked until he came upon a watering hole.

Crouched in the bushes, he spotted a majestic stag, the likes of which his eyes and never beheld before. Yet greed overtook his innocent wonder, and he was certain it would make an excellent roast.

So he drew his bow, and let his arrow fly…slaying the poor creature. As it lay dying the trees nearby began to shed their leaves, the plants wilted, and the flowers dulled. The forest itself was dying, as winter crept over the boughs and took hold of its very roots.

The brother took no notice of the death around him, and feasted upon the stag until he had at last had his fill.

When the youngest brother returned home, he found the Goddess angry beyond all reason.

_You have not done well unto my creation,_ she thundered. _You have taken wood from the Heart of the forest, and slain its guardian - and now, your home is dying._

The brother pleaded with the Goddess. _I knew not what I was doing!_ He cried. _Have mercy!_

_You have desecrated my haven,_ said the Goddess. _Such a deed is unforgivable. You will leave at once, and be cursed forever to wander the earth in search of food and shelter from the winter - never to return to this blessed place. Leave now, and do not tarry._

And so the menfolk the Goddess had forged walked down into the valley, banished from their paradise. Angry and distraught, they argued amongst themselves and soon parted ways, each vowing to settle a different corner of the land in his own way. The youngest brother took for his sigil the prancing stag, and settled in the south, upon a land plagued by violent storms - vowing to conquer it, and through this, one day conquer all. The middle brother, cunning as he was, took for his sigil the proud lion, and settled upon a great mountainside, and there in its depths found riches beyond all reckoning. The second eldest, simple and kind, took for his sigil the leaping trout, and settled upon the rushing rapids of the Great Fork, and there became a great fisherman and Gatekeeper of all who wished to pass to the south.

But the eldest brother, a wise and strong man, stayed in the North - and gathered the soil there at his feet. With it, he made the shape of a great wolf. Once finished, he climbed into the mouth of the wolf, and wore the wolf’s shape as it were a cloak, and never again removed it.

In the wolf shape the eldest brother was truly free. He was fast and strong as the river that ran, and soon became King. He hunted, but took only what he needed, and there among the hills and the great wood he made for himself a den for his family and the families that would come long after his own had perished. He sat and looked over his lands, saw the great trees and the glittering stars, and was happy. To give thanks for his blessing, he raised his head to the night sky and sang to the Goddess - for always he would hold love for her, and she for him. For giving him his home, the eldest brother promised the Goddess that he would fight in her Honor, and win many wars.

But the goddess said, _No, do not fight for me. Fight for your people. Fight for the family that has been born to you. Fight for the brothers and sisters you find._

_Fight for them,_ she said, _For they are your true home._

It was the only one of his stories that she truly took to heart.

⤝ ⤞

If the stag could sense the shadow lurking at his heels, he gave no indication.

Though she supposed she was nearly impossible to hear over the gentle soaking rain pelting the leaves above, and even harder to smell. A shift in fortune, or pure coincidence. It did not matter. Only her survival was of consequence. 

Her eyes glittered like coal beneath the shadow of her hood, drawn securely about her sharp, gaunt features. She drew her hand over the fletching of her nocked arrow, feeling the feathers bristle between her fingers. Her breath hung in the misty air, shallow and rhythmic, taught and poised. Quiet as anything, she shifted slowly in the brush where she was crouched, out of clear sight. _Learn._ The leaves shuddered restlessly in a wayward gust of wind, seeming to whisper. _Anticipate._ The stag cantered silently across the clearing, at last lowering his proud head to graze. 

_Now._

The arrow flew swiftly, twisting and whistling through the air, sending birds bursting from the trees above as it mets its mark. 

Satisfied, she straightened and swung the bow over her shoulder and onto her back, reaching beneath the folds of her cloak to unsheathe her knife before giving a sharp whistle that echoed over the tree tops. Kneeling alongside the stag with its bulging, unseeing eye, she sighed and began her morbid task. Stranger came ambling obediently along soon after, snorting and throwing his huge head indignantly and nipping the top of her head as she worked. She gave a small smile and reached to pat his neck. 

It was a fine helping of meat after all; good luck, and nothing more. If she believed in the old gods she would thank them - it’d been three days without sight of game, and the need was high. It’d last a week or more, and she’d chosen a healthy one, at that. Slinging her prize onto Stranger’s flank, she climbed swiftly into the saddle and gave a click, urging him on - further up the rocky, tree-lined mountainside. 

Yes, her luck had indeed taken a turn for the questionable, but it all seemed to balance out in the end. Not two days ago she had been bushwhacked by two bandits camping upon the riverbank while hunting, thinking themselves quite clever (and invincible, no doubt) in their drunken stupor. With only one brain and a rusty knife between them, they were facile opponents, and the fight was quick. After picking them clean of any valuables, of which there were not many, she followed their haphazard trail to an empty camp, in which she’d found a pile of fine furs they’d somehow manage to poach from the Vale’s land, alongside a suspiciously empty cask of terribly fermented dreamwine. 

Their negligence had proved her blessing. 

Arya was more than fine on her own, able to care for herself with ease. And yet, in all this time alone, she could not for the life of her shake the feeling of watchful eyes upon her. Not simply watching either, but perhaps keeping her from true danger. Something inside her told her they were not malevolent, but nonetheless she watched her back warily; she’d learned to be untrusting of strangers as the years passed, and the babe growing inside her had done nothing to sate that fear. Even so, it was not the feeling of a stranger. There was something familiar there. As if it were, well…kin. 

Onwards and upwards she rode, lost in thought, guiding Stranger absentmindedly through the boulders and perilous gravelly slopes until at last they came upon a plateau of sorts - and there, nestled in-between two looming walls of rock, the mouth of a small, unassuming cave. Here she dismounted and led the big black horse to the entrance, beneath the overhang of an enormous boulder where he would be as dry and warm as he could be. Patting him appreciatively, she removed his burden, slung it over her shoulder and entered. 

The space was small, but it served it purpose and more. The roof of the cave was slanted and low, yet dry, and despite its size there was ample space for their belongings. She had built a handsome fire from dritftwood near the mouth of the cave, and constructed a rickety cooking spit from the scrap. She laid her bounty alongside it unceremoniously, atop a slab she found near the woods, and cast her rain-soaked cloak aside. Kneeling beside the fire to warm her hands, she rubbed them idly together and blew air through her pursed lips, sighing. Upon the slab, next to the pile of meat, there was a bouquet of dried Nettleroot and White Ladies. She plucked a few of them and produced the makeshift mortar and pestle from the pack. 

As she ground the herbs, a quiet noise caused her to glance over at the massive pile of furs and fabric on the other side of the fire, gathered a the back wall. 

“ _Mmmuh…_ ” He turned restlessly in his sleep, sweat coating his face in a thin sheen. _“Mother…_ ” 

It seemed he was calling out to her again, lost in the labyrinth of his fever. It wasn’t the first time; nor would it be the last. He called for his mother, for his father, names she did not know (who was Ellor?), and often Arya’s own. It didn’t seem to be getting better, no matter how many herbs she crushed or bandages she changed. Arya turned back to the fire, heart sinking, and began to a hum a gentle tune. 

It was all up to him, now. There was nothing more she could do. 

Retrieving a tin from their pack, she tipped her water skin over it, filling it near the brim, and then carefully tipped the contents of the pestle into it. Moving quietly to his side, she gently propped his head onto her knee and brought the cup to his pale, cracked lips. Her voice broke slightly as she stroked his hair, his skin shockingly hot to the touch. 

_What grace the seven have given me, so undeserved…let it pass to him._ His head became limp again when he finished drinking, his eyes closing. _Bring him back._ He murmured her name softly as she squeezed water from a rag onto his forehead, wiping gently. The firelight played upon the hard planes of his handsome, gain face, shining with sweat. 

_Let him live._

At the dawn of the second week, he still lived; the rain had at last ceased, though the cold lingered stubbornly upon the air, and in the distance, the grey clouds hung ominously above the jagged mountaintops, threatening to break open once more. She watched them drift quietly by from the mouth of the little cave like great ships in the night, and inhaled deeply through her nose. With whetstone in hand, she watched; and waited. She often wondered if he would ever return. 

And then, a day later, he awoke. 

“I know you,” he breathed. 

A small, tired smile tugged at the corners of his dry lips as he raised a large hand, reaching hesitantly and gently stroking her cheek with his thumb. She smiled through her swiftly gathering tears, leaning into his touch with reverence and kissing his palm. 

“You’ve come back to me, dog,” She whispered. 

His eyes closed languidly and then opened again, not without effort. “I always will.” 

⤝ ⤞

 

They ate alongside the fire, sitting upon the blankets spread out upon the cold stone floor. With the gusto of a wild animal, he devoured his portion of the stew in silence, stopping only to periodically wipe his mouth on his sleeve and nod appreciatively. Stirring her own helping absentmindedly, she watched with amusement. Perhaps twelve days on solely water and herbs would to that to a man. She’d never been much of a cook, but he was inhaling it as if it were fine cuisine from the kitchens of Dorne.

“Mother have mercy,” he groaned when he was finished, resting his back against the wall and wincing as he gave his shoulder an experimental roll. “What the _fuck_ happened?” 

“You are not well.” She stated plainly.

“Aye,” he exhaled through his nose. “I could tell as much. How long…?” 

“Twelve days exactly.” 

“Seven hells,” he raised a hand to his head, running it through his hair. “And the Lannister cunts?” 

“You…well, you killed most of them. I lost the rest upon the High Road. My cousin’s realm lies not far off, but I dared not return, not with my Aunt Lisa dead. I didn’t know what to do, Hound…so I just kept riding. I reckon we’re close to Ironoaks now. I can see the smoke from the forges at Redfort a ways off, if I squint.” 

“Redfort,” he repeated slowly, powering through the pain. “I haven’t been near Redfort since I was a boy…I wonder if stoney old Horton is still clinging onto dear life. Or perhaps he’s clinging onto that young wife of his…the fourth, isn’t she? The - _unh…_ scandal of it.” He shifted, gritting his teeth.

His timing was gods awful, as usual, and yet Arya couldn’t help but chuckle, echoing his air of casual mirth. It was one of the things she admired most about him; his quick wit that was at times lost on those around him, his ability to dryly jest in even the direst of straits. All at once, she was glad to have him back, and no longer quite as lonely. There was that, of course, and the obstinate fact that she loved him. 

“Yes, _quite_ scandalous,” she pursed her lips, raising her eyebrows. “According to the maids in Winterfell the poor girl gave birth only three moons after their most holy union,” 

“The audacity,” he exaggerated with a small smile. “The unmitigated gall.” 

“No shame. No shame at all, really.” 

“Ach…” he sighed. “As _arousing_ as the thought is, imagining Lord Horton’s…geriatric tomfoolery is not on my list of priorities at the moment.” He scratched his neck, leaning his head back and closing his eyes and gaining an air of graveness. “We cannot stay here. Not for long.” 

She pondered this, and found herself agreeing. “You’re not well enough.” 

“No. Not yet. I’d only slow us down like this.” 

“A couple of days, then.” She bit her lip. “Where do we go?” 

“I…I don’t rightly know.” 

“We could try the Eyrie,” she suggested, picking at her palm. “Though I don’t know if Sweetrobin will recognize me, nor care if he does. He was only a babe the last I saw him. But Yohn Royce of Runestone has favored me since I was a girl. My grandfather Hoster was a great friend of his and my Uncle Brynden.” 

“The Eyrie is no safer than King’s Landing, not with the Sparrow keeping watch over it. We should cross closer to the shore. To the red fork.” 

“You don’t mean Wickenden?” 

He was silent for a moment, the fire crackling. “Aye. Wickenden. And from there…” he trailed off again. “I’ve been…thinking.” 

“A dangerous thing.” 

“We’ll take a ship. The first one we can find. And we’ll cross the Narrow Sea.” 

“Braavos,” she whispered.

“Aye. Braavos. You’ve gotten your bloody way, girl. As per usual.” 

"I missed you, Hound." 


	10. Arya & Hound II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigh...

"Are you quite certain you're well enough to ride?" She asked quietly, looking up at him with concern in her piercing grey eyes. 

"Aye," he grunted, though perhaps he did not believe it, and tipped her chin with a flash of a reassuring smile. Then he hoisted her up off of her feet, holding her near his face for a beat, before sighing and setting her atop the big black warhorse. Putting his boot in the stirrup, he pulled himself up with effort, swinging his leg over the side and coming close behind her in the saddle. 

They rode for hours upon hours, plodding their way over the perilous rocks of the mountain range. After a while, snow began to flurry silently around them, though it was not yet cold enough for it to stick. He drew the large swath of fur that served as their bedding around them both, and soon she was curled against his chest, lulled slowly to sleep by the low hums and 'whoas' and clicks as guided Stranger steadily over the rough terrain. 

On the second day, only miles from the port, he brought Stranger to a stop between a pass, reigning in. "Need t'go for a piss," he grunted, and hopped down off the stallion. "We'll stop here for a moment." 

Though the ground was hard and cold, making for unsure footing, from where he stood he could see Arya in position at the top of the rocky peak, faithfully practicing her water dancing. With a masterful twirl she fought off imaginary foes, plunging quickly and catlike, returning her sword behind her back and stepping slowly in a circle as a leaf follows the direction of the wind. 

When her eyes fell upon the blonde knight making his way steadily up the hill, she stopped, frozen in the forward pose as if an arrow had struck her through the heart. 

"People coming," she hissed towards the rock where he stood, cock out and very squarely unready. They had quite literally caught him with his pants down. The tall man - woman, he could barely glimpse, stepped closer. He felt a surge of unbridled urgency, struggling to stuff himself back into his trousers and replace his leathers. 

"Morning!" said the woman brightly, stopping only feet away down the hill. 

"Morning." said Arya, her lips drawn tight. She kept Needle raised, making no concession to manners. 

The woman smiled genially, ignoring this. "I like your sword," then, when Arya said nothing, she shifted awkwardly on her gangly feet and glanced over her shoulder. "I wonder if you could tell me - are we getting close to the Bloody Gate?" 

Arya hesitated, then gestured vaguely over her shoulder. "Bout ten more miles." 

"You hear that, Podrick?" A young man came struggling up the hill behind her, the two large saddle bags upon his back making him look like some sort of monstrous turtle. "Only ten more miles till the Bloody Gate." Podrick panted and nodded, a young squire clad in an ill-fitting crimson leather doublet and short sword. 

Arya glanced at the Hound, as he laced his trousers and stared at her intently, listening to the conversation. She turned her head towards the woman, making herself appear curious.  _Buying us time. Good girl._

"You a knight?" 

The woman smiled, and shook her head. "No." 

"But you know how to use that sword." She nodded at the golden scabbard hanging at the woman's side." 

"I do." she hooked her thumb on her ornate sword belt.  _She is no mercenary. Not with gold like that._

Arya lowered Needle, and stepped forward. "Does it...have a name?" 

"Oathkeeper," said the woman. 

"Mine is Needle." She sheathed the sword in her belt -  _his_ belt, wrapped to secure one of his flowing tunics around her, hidden beneath her oversized cloak. She looked so small, clad mostly in his clothes - the pup had not begun to show, yet he did not want any travelers knowing of her condition when it did. 

The woman smiled again, a garish, gap-toothed grin that nonetheless managed to appear Kindly. "A good name." 

Arya allowed herself a small smile. "Who taught you how to fight?" 

"My father." 

"Mine never wanted to. He said fighting was for boys." 

"Mine said the same. But I kept fighting the boys anyway...kept losing. Finally, my father said, 'If you're going to do it you might as well do it right,'"

At that moment he chose to step from behind the rock, tightening his belt, and stopped just before the girl - putting himself squarely in-between them. 

If he started them, the big bitch didn't show it; rather, she smiled brightly at him. 

"Seven blessings! I am Brienne of Tarth, and this is Podrick Payne." She nodded towards the meek boy behind her. 

He regarded them skeptically. "You want something?" 

The boy called Podrick gaped at him. "That's Sandor Clegane," he said, and Brienne's smile faded.  _Shit._ "The Hound." The moniker washed over him, and the familiar sinking feeling settled over his chest.  _Fuck._

Arya mood closer to him, sliding her arms around his and tugging. " _Let's go,_ " she breathed, but he stood fast. 

Brienne stared at the girl, eyes widening in terrifying recognition. "You're...Arya Stark." she said, eyebrows creased. 

The Hound closed a hand over the hilt of his sword, jutting out his chin. "I asked if you wanted something." 

Brienne ignored him, holding Arya's gaze. "I swore to your mother I would bring you home to her." 

Arya clutched his arm tighter. "My mother is dead." 

"I know." she stepped closer. "I wish I could have been there to protect her." 

Arya shook her head slowly, as if in a daze. "You're no Northerner..." 

"No. But I swore a sacred vow to protect her." 

Arya's eyes became cold, her lips parted. "Then why didn't you?" 

For a moment, she looked forlorn, watery blue eyes roving to the ground, and then slowly back up. "She commanded me to bring Jaime Lannister back to King's Landing." 

"You're paid by the Lannisters?" he demanded, taking a step forward with his knuckles white upon the hilt of his sword. "You're here for the bounty on me, then?" 

Brienne shook her head, meeting his gaze for the first time. "I'm not paid by the Lannisters." 

"No?" He huffed, and nodded towards her ornate scabbard, which gleamed even in the gloom. "Fancy sword you got there. Where'd you get it?" Brienne said nothing, and Arya was practically hugging him now, begging him not to spur her on - but he could barely hear her. "I've been looking at Lannister gold all my life. Go on, Brienne of fucking Tarth. Tell me that's not Lannister gold." 

Brienne tightened her lips across her teeth. "Jaime Lannister gave me this sword." 

Arya glared, jerking her head behind them. "The Bloody Gate is ten miles." 

"Arya," said Brienne desperately. "Is wore to your mother by the old gods and the new - "

"I don't  _care_ what you swore," said Arya, raising her voice. 

"You heard the girl," he rumbled. "She's not coming with you." 

Brienne ignored this. "Come, Arya, I'll take you to safety - "

"Safety?" he shouted incredulously, and nearly laughed. "Where the fuck's that? Her aunt in the Eyrie is dead, her mother's dead, her father's dead, her brother's dead, and Winterfell is a pile of rubble. She's had enough time on her own to grow into a godsdamned woman." 

"Hound," Arya whispered, clutching at his mail and burying her nose into his tunic. 

He looked down at her, then back up at the blonde woman. "There is no safety, you dumb bitch. Not anymore." 

"Hound, please," she whispered again, tears gathering in her eyes. 

"If you don't know that by now...you're the wrong one to watch over her." 

"And that's what you're doing? _Watching over her?"_

"Aye," he said softly. "That's what I'm doing." 

She begged him to turn away. To come with her. With  _them._

"Please," she whispered. " _Please._ Just this once...listen to  _me._ " 

He looked down at her, and their eyes met for a single breath. 

_No._

Brienne began to d raw her sword, a sliver of metal glinting from the scabbard. 

The Hound ground his jaw, glancing down at the weapon. "Valyrian Steel." he smirked. "Always wanted some Valyrian Steel." 

Brienne’s nostrils flared, and suddenly there was thesound of metal on leather as both of the warriors drew their swords. It all happened so slowly - and yet, all at once. She watched as sparks flew when they clashed violently, fighting down the hill, completely and utterly matched.

Arya ran as fast her legs could take her, away from the boy Podrick, who stumbled and fell with a yelp as he pursued her - she found a ridge of boulders, trying in vain to find a way to watch the battle without being captured. Her heart pounded in her chest, and his cloak felt heavy upon her shoulders.

She watched as they struggled onto a muddy plateau, following through the rocks with them. _He’s sick._ She wanted to shout. _He’s sick._ They were matched quite evenly when it came to swordplay - but she knew it was only because his swings had hardly any of their usual brute force behind them. His sword shoulder was wounded and the fever still had him in its grasp.

Brienne backed him towards the cliff, but she watched him tackle her and roll away. She kicked the Hound in the chest, near his wound, and he cried out in pain. His sword flew from his grasp and he fell to his knees, long hair hanging over his face as he bent his head.

Arya’s heart seemed to stop as the woman held the point of her sword to his neck, hesitating.

“I have no wish to kill you, Ser,”

The Hound grinned manically and slowly raised his eyes to her, blood streaming down his handsome face. Then, suddenly, he grasped the sword around its razor sharp edge, blood spilling from his large hands. Still holding the weapon, he struggled to stand, rising to his full height to tower above her.

_“I…am not a Knight.”_

With a swing of his arm he punched her clear across the face with a sickening thud Arya was sure could be heard for miles, and Brienne fell to the ground. He picked her up by the hair, but she turned, elbowing him in the groin. He collapsed with a cry of pain, still holding her, and they began to wrestle, punching and kicking wildly. The battle had turned into a desperate struggle. Finally, the Hound kicked Brienne off of his chest, struggling to stand as she crawled away and kicking hard between her legs twice, making her scream in agony. With an animalistic roar, he leapt upon her and straddled her as Arya watched, holding her down and punching her once, twice, three times - and then brought his head down forcefully upon hers, so that she fell limply back.

He quickly unsheathed his knife, making to cut her throat, but Brienne screamed and forced his arm away, flipping him over and biting at his ear, ripping the flesh. He yelled in pain and kicked her off his back, rolling over. Soon they were both on their feet, chests rising and falling. Brienne set out part of his flesh and swiped up a rock, holding it in her hand.

When he approached her with his knife, she brought the rock across his face, and soon they were locked in a deadly embrace. The Hound was grappling her, not allowing her to move, but she brought the rock downupon his head, breaking free and making him stagger backwards.

He was dazed, swaying on his feet, and the large woman punched him again and again with gauntleted fists. They were ending closer and closer to the cliff, but the Hound did nothing. Could do nothing. He was weakened, sick and bleeding.

Arya screamed desperately from her place behind the rock, tears streaming and heart pounding violently.

“ _HOUND!”_

With a guttural screech Brienne kicked his chest, and he tumbled backwards over the cliff.

⤝ ⤞

 

 

White. White, hot pain. Gods, everything was on fire. More than usual, he supposed. 

Bugger. There was a rock  _right_ in the small of his back.

Panting, he attempted to muster the strength to move himself upwards against the boulder. Instead, he slipped farther down the slope and dragged his head against yet another rock. Seven hells, there were rocks everywhere. He had bigger fish to fry, he supposed, like dying - and he _was_ dying. Just like his mother, and his father. His little sister. But not hisfucking brother. Oh no - not him. Why would Gregor die, when it was so fun to torture old Sandor?He gave a great fit of coughing, and tasted blood. Fuck.

A small skittering sound made him turn his head, and he saw the one thing in the world he both loved and did not want to see. He lowered his brow.

“You’re still here,” he coughed, and again there was blood. There was blood everywhere, though, so he supposed it didn’t matter. He wondered what he looked like; terrifying, he imagined. More than usual. “Big blonde bitch saved you, girl. Go with her.”

Her expression was impossible to read. She was still wrapped his cloak, he noticed, clutching it around her small body. He wondered absentmindedly if she was warm enough. Her large grey eyes - beautiful grey eyes- bore into him. “You know I didn’t need saving.”

He laughed his raspy laugh, looking up, and resisting the urge to cough again. It hurt to cough. It hurt to do anything. “No. Not you. You’re a real killer, you and that bloody water-dancing.”

She didn’t smile. “You’re going to die.”

“‘Less there’s a Maester hiding behind that rock…” but the jest caught in his throat, and he looked over at her again with a certain finality. “Aye. I’m done.”

She did not speak, holding herself and watching, and he resisted the urge to reach and brush the hair from her face.

“Go on,” he said gently. “Go after her. She’ll help you. Bring you somewhere safe.”

Arya said nothing. He swallowed, studying her.

She could not stay here. He wouldn’t let her. Wouldn’t let _them._

“You remember where the heart is?” He posed the question nonchalantly, as if inquiring about the weather.

She nodded her head slowly, glaring at him. The tears were falling now.

He coughed violently again, squeezing his eyes shut in pain, and then pulled aside his mail to expose his chest to her.

“Go on girl…’nother name off your list. You kept promising me.”

Silence.

_Don’t make me. Don’t make do this._

He inhaled sharply, trembling from the cold or maybe the pain; he could not say. Still she was silent.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again. Then, he spoke. “I…I cut down your butcher’s boy, remember?” Anything to get her to move, to do something. To go on. To live. “‘Please ser, please don’t kill me’, he said. But I did it anyway, and swung him over my saddle like a cut of fresh meat. Bled all over Stranger. Smelled of butcher’s boy for weeks…”

_A dog serves his master, but he does no more than his appointed task._

He looked at her then, measuring her reaction, silently goading her.

“Bah,” he coughed more, and he felt blood leak from the side of his mouth. “I was too soft on you……shouldn’t have let you play house with me…let you think I cared about you…” Each word was like a dagger in his heart, and he could not bear to look at her. “Stupid little wolf bitch. Should have beat you bloody……Taken you as soon as I saw you in those woods, fucked you bloody every night whether you wanted it or not……just a whore for the taking…that’s what you were.”

She swallowed, her fist tight upon Needle’s hilt.

He turned his bloodied face to look her in the eyes one last time, eyebrows knit upwards. He was silent for a while, and they regarded each other, dog and wolf.

He had never loved anything more in his entire life.

“Do I have to beg you?” The words were soft, and seemed to shock her, so weak and soft in his throat.

Arya stood, looking down at him.

“Do it, girl. Please.”

She knelt beside him, and he was sure the end was near.

She looked at him and he at her, and slowly lowered her lips to his.

He closed his eyes as she kissed him, feeling her tears fall onto his cheeks. Their lips parted, and their breaths intermingled for an instant.

“Don’t be what they made you,” she whispered.

And then, as all things, she was gone.

“Do it,” he groaned. “Do it.”

The slow clopping of hooves.

“KILL ME. _KILL ME!_ ”

⤝ ⤞

_Lo there, do I see my Mother._   


_Lo there, do I se my Father._

_Lo, do they call to me._

_Lo do they call to me._

_Lo do they call to me....._

Visions passed before his mind's eye as the seasons passed in time; of dogs and men and wolves and yellow fields, the first snow of winter. And a boy...a boy with his eyes. As he looked on, the boy ran, but he could not follow...

There was dark, for a time. Dark that swallowed the light. And then, from the darkness, a single wavering flame. A voice. It spoke, but he could not hear. Could not understand. he called out to it, but the flame grew, and overtook him; he screamed, though none would come to his aid, and was reborn from ash, naked and no longer afraid. He heard his name, and grasped onto the thought, letting it take him where it would. 

On the third day he was stirred from this feverish reverie by voices and middle annoying rambling of a wagon very close to throwing a wheel.  _Gods. I thought it was finally over._

"... _mother almighty!_ " The voices were saying. He could make out three, at least. A young one, maybe a green horn, perhaps not. A raspy one, aged by brandy and pipetted. And a measured, warm one that reminded him of his grandfather. 

"Dead, most like," said the raspy cunt. Was this the Mother's mercy, or the Stranger's release at last?

"Should we bury 'im here, Ray? Or take him to the village and bury 'im in the yard?"

No. The Father's countenance. 

"To the village, Rawney. It's only what's right. Poor sod..." 

Struggling to open his eyes, he raised a hand towards them, reaching, and gave a great cough.

"Gods above!" One exclaimed. "He ain't dead, lookit." 

His vision was blurry and the sun much too bright, but he could just make out the men hovering above him, concern lining their dirty faces. He coughed again, smacking his dry lips, and managed to speak. 

" _A...girl...did you see?_ " 

"What's he asking?" 

"A girl. Did we see one." 

One of them leaned closer, speaking slowly and loudly as if he were developmentally stunted. His breath smelled of dream wine, but was not entirely unpleasant. "No, not likely, Ser! There's not a soul for miles!" 

"Hang on," murmured the young voice quivering. "I know this man."  If he wasn't half dead he would have rolled his eyes.  _Doesn't bloody everybody._ The blackness was beginning to creep around his vision again. "That's the Mad Dog of the Saltpans, that is. The Hound!" 

_No...no. Not a hound,_ he wanted to shout, but no sound came.  _A man._  


" _Sandor,"_ he heard himself whisper, before the darkness took him once more. " _My name...is Sandor."_

 

 

** _fin._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy.


End file.
